Creative Writing Tips �

The writer, who doesn�t have the time to plot, always finds the time to rewrite.

Sound familiar?

I�ve been guilty of this too, back in the early days of my writing apprenticeship. I was so eager to get stuck into writing my story that I wouldn�t bother with plotting.

Plotting gives you a sense of direction. It�s your map, which will lead you to write your story. Leaping into the unknown rarely works. Without a plot several things can happen�.

• Our stories aren�t focused
• We lose our way
• Our characters don�t come to life because we don�t take the time to develop them
• We get stuck
• The story strays from us

And all this happens when we haven�t figured everything out first.

Your plot is the foundation of your story. It�s the skeleton, which will hold your story together. Your plot is there to work everything out first � to see if it can be worked out, and then flesh out that skeleton with other elements that make a story.

Plotting is the difference between writing a story for yourself and writing one for an audience. Writing for ourselves doesn�t require too much strain because we only have ourselves to please. It�s when we have to please our readers that the hard work begins.

If you are aiming to sell your stories, plotting is a must.

Have you plotted your story before writing it?

This article was posted on August 24, 2004