Tuesday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

HOW TO PLOT A CHARACTER-DRIVEN STORY

By: Glen Strathy (How to Write a Book Now)

Question (Roger from Brazil): I recently found out that I am more of a plot driven story teller. Before, when I think of an idea for a story, I tend to think of the plot first, and then create characters based on that plot. I guess that's because I used to read a lot of mystery stories before. However, I realized that the characters I've created are rather flat and not that memorable.

Recently I've been reading character driven stories, and I thought that the characters are really interesting. And the plot of those stories are not bad at all. So I decided to try out creating characters first and then think of a plot based on those characters. But I found it harder than I thought. I guess I might be experiencing another kind of writer's block.

So my question is, can you give me some tips on how I should plot a story based on characters that I've created? I hope that you could help me on this. Thank you very much. :)

Answer: Character-driven plotting can be much more complicated, which is why so many authors who write them tend to be pantsers (i.e. they don't plan so much but write "from the seat of their pants" and let the characters dictate the direction of the story). Of course, they may need to do a lot more revision later to find the plot.

Your first step is to develop your understanding of the characters, so you have a holographic sense of who they are and how they will behave. You may want to write detailed character sketches and backstories.

You will still have a plot to plan, but the overall plot may take a backseat to the other throughlines that deal with the point-of-view (POV) characters' inner conflicts, as well as the character relationships. Fortunately, there are ways to plot these as well.

A well-developed POV character's arc should look like this...

. . .

Read the full article HERE!

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If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:

1. Self-Publishing Marketing: What You've Been Doing Wrong http://ow.ly/AVmdH
2. Clarissa Draper: Writing with Scrivener Quick Tip: Using Word Count To Keep Motivated http://ow.ly/AWdD4
3. 52 Ways To Sell More Books - Tip #49 http://ow.ly/AWaEU 50 Things to Tweet About
4. Seriously Write: The Road to Creating Great Characters by Kathryn Springer http://ow.ly/AWaLf
5. Confident vs. Confidant http://ow.ly/AWaO8 Daily Writing Tips
6. Using Split Screen for Editing | Tech Tools for Writers http://ow.ly/AWdsm
7. Peter Mendelsund, Book Designer, Debuts as a Writer - NYTimes.com http://ow.ly/AWdXo
8. Karen Woodward: How To Write A Kick-Ass Blurb http://ow.ly/AWe0M
9. How to plot a character-driven story http://ow.ly/AWeM3
10. Julie Musil: What to do Before You're Published http://ow.ly/AWfbT
11. What Went Wrong? Story Conflict and How to Make it Stronger | Fiction Notes http://ow.ly/AWfk7
12. How to Use Surveys to Discover Marketable Book Topics http://ow.ly/AWfzm
13. 6 Side Effects Only Writers Experience | Thought Catalog http://ow.ly/AWfE9
14. 8 Screenwriting Tips That Will Help You in the Long Run http://ow.ly/AWfVC
15. An Englishman’s Way of Speaking Absolutely Classifies Him* | Confessions of a Mystery Novelist... http://ow.ly/AWgyx
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17. Five Things “Thou Shalt Not Do” as an Indie Writer by Kimberly Shursen - Underground Book Reviews http://ow.ly/AWiCS
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21. Writing From Life: Jessica Scott On Being a Writer and a Soldier – Kobo Writing Life http://ow.ly/AWkmM
22. Teaching Yourself to Write Better Dialogue: Three Steps That Will Make All the Difference http://ow.ly/AWkBX
23. Do You Need a Distributor for Your Books? - Training Authors for Success http://ow.ly/AWlpz
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25. Storytelling: One Surprising Approach to Plotting http://ow.ly/AWESb
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30. How To Write An Effective Book Tweet - Training Authors for Success http://ow.ly/AXMBs

Happy writing and running, Kathy