My local library is always super supportive!

I wrote this post a year and a half ago (and am still plugging away on the same book). I can say plot starts to make more sense to me the longer I work on a project.

For the last year I’ve been trying to learn how to plot. I’ve read a half dozen books and have tried numerous systems (the Snowflake Method, the Six-Stage Plot Structure, the Nine-Box Plot). My efforts have sometimes been tinged with fear. (Study is often easier for me than starting work on a hazy idea.) While I might have been searching for a Golden System for everything fall into place, I was also legitimately interested in bettering my craft. But I’m not going to lie. Efficiency and speed were also alluring, as was the unspoken idea that real writers buckle down and learn how to make an outline work.

Never, ever do I want to think I’ve got it all figured out. Still, plot eludes me. I know things that have to happen because I’ve set them in motion, but when I try to strategically plan far beyond where I am, everything falls apart.

Last month I talked to my editor, Stacey, about Miraculous. I confessed that the writing was slow and inefficient because I just couldn’t learn how to plot. She asked why I felt I needed to plot if my system is working. I’ve published three novels. Something has to be right!  Stacey told me to take the time I need. I got to pick the due date for my first draft (October 1, right after my critique group’s yearly retreat).

I cannot tell you how validating that conversation was (and how huge it is to have such a supportive editor). I try not to compare, but it’s hard not to notice friends who knock out fabulous drafts in a couple of weeks. That’s their system — more power to them! — and this is mine.

I’ve got permission to find this story’s path in the way that works best for me.

Reading through a critique can be hard. I know. It’s hard for me, too!

You’ve worked months, maybe years, on a piece of writing you love, and hearing it needs improvement might be painful. I’m excited every time my editor sends along a critique letter, but I’m also nervous. She points out parts of the story I’ve already sensed might need to be changed and things I had no idea weren’t working. Sometimes I laugh out loud, realizing what she’s taken from my writing doesn’t match up at all with what I thought I’d communicated. By the time I’m two-thirds through the letter, my mind has shut down. It’s just too much information to take in all at once.

There are familiar feelings I go through, too. Embarrassment is a typical one. I sometimes feel like all my weaknesses have been exposed — weaknesses I knew I had and some I had no idea about! Overwhelm is another. Now that I see just how much work the story needs, how in the world am I to do it? Why doesn’t the letter also come with a magic wand?

After my first read through, I set the letter aside. I usually take the dog for a walk and let my thoughts both wander and rest. As I go throughout the day, I don’t actively work on the suggestions I’ve read, but I’m processing them just the same. By the time I come back to the letter the next day, I realize I’ve internalized some of the recommendations. They no longer feel new and surprising. Even if I don’t know how to fix things yet, my editor’s advice is starting to make sense.

Entrusting your work to someone else is both risky and brave. I hope you’ll be able to see a critique in the light it was written — not as a malicious attempt to make you look bad, but as an effort to help you improve your work. And remember: what you’re reading is one person’s opinion. As the writer, you always get the final say.