Evolution of a Plot: Planning Your Novel

So I'm sure a lot of you have come across the pantsing and planning debates. Or maybe you haven't. It doesn't matter. Whether you pants, plan, or fall somewhere in between, I have one nugget of wisdom: IT'S OKAY TO LET YOUR PLOT EVOLVE.

If you plan every detail down to a sneeze, this may not really touch you that much, but I'm willing to bet it does in the editing room. Things change. It's a fact of life. When writing a novel, you can bet your frilly little undies things will change. Maybe that character relationship you wrote fell a little flat and needs some extra TLC. Or maybe there's a plot hole you missed. Whatever the case, it is FINE if your plot needs to evolve to fill in the gaps.

So on pantsing or planning, I find myself somewhere in the middle. I throw out a vague outline of plans to cover my plot from point A to Z, but I let character interactions kind of move the plot at a more natural pace. It's worked well for me, but it also means my plot has to evolve as I write. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The plantser element served me well in my first book, and it still stands for the next in the series. Chaos Rising is still in first draft mode, as in...unfinished. I recently had to restructure some of the plot, which meant adding some new bits and pieces into a formerly vague outline.

As an example of how my plantser method looks, I'm going to now share with you the ORIGINAL planning points for part one of the story. Try not to laugh too hard.

PART ONE:

Prologue

• Llilinth got what she wanted and had Selgetorn, but she foisted him off on Kea. So Selv is forever trying to win his mother's love and she could give a shit less. 

Chapters

• Invidia escapes Sotanocte with tome, but breaks her leg upon exiting the tunnels. Meets Gelfein and is taken aboard ship bound for Drow community, Shtepi ni’Det.

• Assault on Invidia by Neeral leads to mutiny. Crew rallies under Akorafae’s flag.

• Akorafae takes them on a dangerous assault of…somewhere on the coast? They sack a town, plunder and such, are almost trapped, use their own boat as a fire-ship to escape, and take on a captured vessel as the new flag ship.

• When they finally make it back to Shtepi n’Det, Invidia is introduced to “Stone,” the ossified elder. Through touch-transfer, Invidia sees what really happened to the Forefather (Forebelo), why his name was wiped from the records, and why the book she possesses is so very important.

• As she settles into her life in the community and continues to heal, Gelfein becomes her constant companion. He is relieved of his duties as quartermaster and made Invidia’s personal servant. Gelfein’s grandmother hopes to make a match between them (priestesses on surface can have families and are not separated from the community like they are in the Sotanocte). Neither Invidia nor Gelfein has any interest in romantic bullshit, but the arrangement suits them otherwise. He teaches her to understand languages by ear instead of relying so heavily on sign.

• Neeral is shunned within Shtepi ni’Det because of his foul behavior, and he’s stripped of all rights. He finally steals the tome and a small schooner, running along the coast until he disembarks in Midterkyst (the capitol of learning). He tries to find a buyer for the book, but nobody can read the Drow dialect.

• A member of the Tiernon steals the book from him and returns it to the tower to be translated. Saxa, a young scribe and linguist, takes months to fully understand the depths of the Drow language and transcribe the book, but she keeps coming back to the passage “On Breadth Keys,” completely fascinated by the prospect of a key that can transport the user ANYWHERE.

• Lleu is in Himin, getting pissed about all the unfair treatment at Freyr’s hands. A human monk—Filip—is allowed unfettered access to Himin while the angelli can’t even go near the well without reprimand. His anger gets to the breaking point and he stages a coup.

• There’s also shit going on in Sotanocte, not sure WHICH aspects to highlight, tbh. The Dell are the least clear to me in their affiliations and motivations. Llilinth is crazy bitch lady; Kea is sneaky sneak lady; and Selgetorn knows nothing, Jon Snow.

EPILOGUE

• ?? Um…stuff…

At it's conception, I knew the basic storylines and which characters I would concentrate on, so my planning was mostly character-based with a few high points in the plot thrown in, but it was in no way COMPLETE. I mean...LOOK AT IT.

Now, as the plot evolved around these characters, so did the planning. If we were to actually address which bits of this show up in the book, it might look a little more like THIS:

PART ONE:

Prologue

• Llilinth got what she wanted and had Selgetorn, but she foisted him off on Kea. So Selv is forever trying to win his mother's love and she could give a shit less. 

Chapters

• Invidia escapes Sotanocte with tome, but breaks her leg upon exiting the tunnels. Meets Gelfein and is taken aboard ship bound for Drow community, Shtepi ni’Det.

• Assault on Invidia by Neeral leads to mutiny. Crew rallies under Akorafae’s flag.

• Akorafae takes them on a dangerous assault of…somewhere on the coast? They sack a town, plunder and such, are almost trapped, use their own boat as a fire-ship to escape, and take on a captured vessel as the new flag ship. [Bunk plot point. Reworked to become character growth.]

• When they finally make it back to Shtepi n’Det, Invidia is introduced to “Stone,” the ossified elder. Through touch-transfer, Invidia sees what really happened to the Forefather (Forebelo), why his name was wiped from the records, and why the book she possesses is so very important.

• As she settles into her life in the community and continues to heal, Gelfein becomes her constant companion. He is relieved of his duties as quartermaster and made Invidia’s personal servant. Gelfein’s grandmother hopes to make a match between them (priestesses on surface can have families and are not separated from the community like they are in the Sotanocte). Neither Invidia nor Gelfein has any interest in romantic bullshit, but the arrangement suits them otherwise. He teaches her to understand languages by ear instead of relying so heavily on sign.

• Neeral is shunned within Shtepi ni’Det because of his foul behavior, and he’s stripped of all rights. He finally steals the tome and a small schooner, running along the coast until he disembarks in Midterkyst (the capitol of learning). He tries to find a buyer for the book, but nobody can read the Drow dialect.

• A member of the Tiernon steals the book from him and returns it the book to the tower to be translated. Saxa, a young scribe and linguist, takes months to fully understand the depths of the Drow language and transcribe the book, but she keeps coming back to the passage “On Breadth Keys,” completely fascinated by the prospect of a key that can transport the user ANYWHERE.

• Lleu is in Himin, getting pissed about all the unfair treatment at Freyr’s hands. A human monk—Filip—is allowed unfettered access to Himin while the angelli can’t even go near the well without reprimand. His anger gets to the breaking point and he stages a coup. [Expanded.]

• There’s also shit going on in Sotanocte, not sure WHICH aspects to highlight, tbh. The Dell are the least clear to me in their affiliations and motivations. Llilinth is crazy bitch lady; Kea is sneaky sneak lady; and Selgetorn knows nothing, Jon Snow. [Expanded.]

EPILOGUE

• ?? Um…stuff… [Filled in to tie up a subplot.]

SO, as you can see, it is perfectly normal to let your plot evolve and to rewrite, add to, or otherwise discard things. In the course of your writing, allow yourself to get it wrong, because you WILL eventually get it right, and then you will love the end result all the more for what it has become.

Write on, wordsmiths. I'll be cheering you on in the background.