Fun with plotting!

There's been a lot of discussion on plotting and organizing lately, especially with Claire's thread at Compuserve about her index card method.

I posted in that thread describing my current spreadsheet system (with screenshots!)

So in that vein, I went on a blog-jag this morning, beginning with an excellent (as usual) post from Diana Peterfreund's blog about plotting boards and how she does hers. That post included links to other methods:

An intriguing-looking software package called Writers Blocks. I may try the demo when I get home tonight.

More storyboarding from Julie Leto

I plan to update my spreasheet shortly, to color code for POV and such and expand for all projected scenes (now that I have an outline). I will incorporate some elements of these posts into the spreadsheet. But when I'm closer to or actually done (October is the goal *knocks wood*) I may break out the colored post-its. It's a more organic, all-at-a-glance process.

Quick status update: last night I wrote again for the first time since reaching my June goal. I took a few days off to recover (and research). I managed about 800 words, which was okay. I only need to average 500/night for this month, so that's pretty decent.

Also I think I have decided to drop the pottery arc from the story. It's one of the last remnants of me forcing something into the storyline back when I got started. I love ceramics (see prev. post) and thought it would be neat to have Elspeth do pottery as a way of contributing. But as I approach that part of the story, it just feels like a great big boulder tied to my plot and weighting it down. Which I think is a good indication to let it go. And I do feel lighter.

So, now I need to replace elements of that arc with simpler, more realistic bits. Must research and cogitate on that a bit. I'm thinking of having her take up weaving, taught by Alec's sister Mairi. Or something else that a 21-st century girl could learn/do to contribute to the clan. Hmmm...

Getting back to the plotting subject of this post, as this story begins to really take shape and get off the ground (to mix my metaphors) as I look over the storyboards and such I'm realizing I need to think about possible secondary arcs, etc. For now, though, I'm just going to write, and see what crops up.