While I’m in Japan, Kristan will be posting for me. Enjoy!

Confession: Les asked me to write a guest post on planning a book about… 3 months ago? And I was all, Sure, I can do that! Only, when I opened a new Word document and started to type? Nothing came out.

But it’s not because I don’t know how to plan a book. It’s because I don’t know how I plan a book.

See, a lot of people compare writing a book to building a house. You lay a foundation (premise and characters), you put up the walls (plot and scenes), you paint the walls (subplots and character development), you furnish the rooms (voice, mood, and other such literary things). So with that analogy in place, it stands to reason that planning a book is like creating blueprints for a house.

But I’m the daughter of two architects, and I’m here to tell you, planning a novel is NOTHING like creating blueprints for a house.

Blueprints for a house have to be complete before you can start building. You cannot draw some squares on a piece of paper and say, “I think this will be the living room, and that over there might make a good dining nook. I’m not sure where the door in the kitchen will go, exactly, but don’t worry, it will have one.” If your blueprints are like that, you may as well duct tape some 2x4s and cardboard together and hope for the best.

But when planning a book, that kind of guesstimation is perfectly okay. “Chapter 1: Protagonist journeys to the castle.” Sounds good! You don’t need to know every last detail — “Protagonist stumbles over rock, falls on face, shows up to the castle with two black eyes, and thus is thought to be a dangerous rogue” — although it wouldn’t hurt.

Some writers like to “connect the dots”: they decide on major plot points and then let themselves work their way from one to the next. Many writers like to start with their main character and basic premise and simply see where they end up. And then there are the writers who like to have every last thing planned out. I suppose that for them, planning a novel IS like creating blueprints.

(One thing to note: Even the most dutiful of planners will admit that things may change along the way. Before they start writing, they may feel SURE that their protagonist would never do X, or always feel Y, but then they get 2/3 of the way through and realize they were sort of wrong and have to modify/add/delete a scene or a plot point. That is okay! Plans can change! That’s both the beauty and the pain of writing.)

Bottom line: there is no right or wrong way to plan a book. There is only what works (or doesn’t) for you individually as a writer.

Personally, I’m still learning how to plan, and to what degree. I’ve tried flying by the seat of my pants (often called “pansting”) and I’ve tried connecting the dots, each with varying measures of success. Now I’m really, really trying to be a full-out planner. After all, as the daughter of two architects, it should be in my blood, right?

For some actual tips on how to plan a book (of fiction) check out these great posts:
- “How to write a novel” by YA author Justine Larbalestier: http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2006/09/06/how-to-write-a-novel/
- “The Snowflake Method” by Randy Ingermanson: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php
- “How to Write a Great Novel” (compilation of several authors’ self-reported methods) by the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513463106012106.html
- “How [not] to write a novel” by Secret Geek: http://www.secretgeek.net/nonwriter.asp