Tag: Write-Plotting

Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash

When writing there are hundreds of ways to prep for writing.

1. Daydreaming the story – this is the least effective, nothing is being written and once the story is complete in your head, the Zeigarnick Effect kicks in and it all goes away. (Zeigarnik effect is remembering interrupted tasks, but completed activities are forgotten.) It is satisfying, in that you told yourself the story, but that is the only person who is going to know it. (See Writing Exercise: Unputdownable (6/4/2026) for details.)
2. Pants it – just start writing it out. Like daydreaming, but with a keyboard. Problem is you can go down a wrong path.
3. Railroad it – completely outline it and completely stick to the outline, even when the characters clearly don’t agree with the action. This is the second least effective. You at least got a story, but there is no joy and not vibe to it.
4. Quick Sketch – Beginning, middle, and end. Inflection point. Rising action. Emotional high point defined. Define two or three characters and dive in.
5. Chapter outline – Learn how long your natural chapters are – more by number of scenes than by word count for this method. Write one to three chapters per sentence. Tweak it. Then start writing.
6. Detailed outline – Back to English class for you: outline the story, beats, and word count. Overlay character and plot arcs.
7. String theory – Describe your story to a patient friend while using a white board. Show how each piece connects to the other with big lines. Have the beloved patient friend write things down, breaking out characters, A and B plots, etc. Buy them dinner, then get to writing.
8. Quilt it – Write all the scenes you know you want for the story piece meal. Then outline it, putting the pieces together and figure out how to stitch the transitions between the scenes.
9. Hit the Beats – Pick up one of the structure and beats sheets available everywhere and stretch the story over the composition and have a jam session writing.

The list goes on.

Today’s writing exercise is outlining.

“But I’m a pantser!” That is fine, you will outline AFTER you are done. This can help you figure out what you are missing in the story.

WRITING EXERCISE: For your present work-in-progress or your next one, create an outline for the story. This can be for any length and in any style – flash to five-book series.

READING EXERCISE: With a short story, outline the story. Drop in the comments below which short story you read (title and author and anthology or other location), and let us know what you discovered during the outline process.

My Attempt: Outline the followup to Roadtrip Teamup. The outline was really important to reacquaint myself with the material after six months away from the original creation.

Photo by Martijn Baudoin on Unsplash

You have reached the center of your story, the mid-point of the second act, and need to add “the twist.” Somehow you need to change all the rules without changing the rules. If you have read a lot, you’ve been exposed to dozens of twists. Sometimes they work, sometimes they are pretentious, and sometimes they fail badly. What makes a good twist?

First and foremost, the twist cannot introduce anything new. It must follow rules and events previously established. To do otherwise is deux machinst (god in the machine), the writer forcing a change for the sake of change. The challenge is to have the event be cause and effect and still be a twist.

In life, twists are those moments where you imitate Homer of the Simpsons cartoon and go “duh”. Or say “that is so obvious, I wish I thought of that”. Recently I was admiring all the escaped balloons decorating a big box store ceiling. How do they get them down? Then I see two retail workers approach with another helium balloon covered with large clear tape in the little circles one does to attach a bow to a gift and the balloon tied to a very, very long string. They released the balloon to the ceiling until it touched another with the clear packing tape, and then pulled down both balloons. They continued until the ceiling was clear. Pure genius. Obvious, following established rules of gravity and adhesion, but a twist I never saw coming.

For the Ah-Ha video I’ve previously written about in blogs on June 2017 (Agency), November 2017 (POV), and May 2018 (Three-Acts), the heroine was pulled into the story. And when the panel police show up to hunt the intruder to the black and white world, the main characters run. The twist to escape is obvious when it happens, but you don’t see it until the hero does it because you are so absorbed in the chase. If one can be drawn into the comic world, one can rip out of it. The woman escapes, and the comic book character guards her exit.

Comedy is great for studying twists. This Bud LIght commercial starring Cedric the Entertainer captures a twist perfectly. Act one establishes the characters, hot chick and lucky guy, act two has the journey to get the beer and the joyous dance celebration, and act three has the resolution. The twist is delivered with the twist of the bottle. Again we get so absorbed in Cedric’s victory dance we forget he is holding the bottles until he sits back down on the couch. A second before the bottle opens, everything that went before plus the rules of carbonation runs through our head and we shout “no” just as the bottle sprays like a firehose into hot chick’s face.

Amhezer Bush, or their advertising department, is good at comedic twists. The ongoing football game between teams of horses with the spectator ranchers at the fence have established the world over the years. Combined with real-world vocabulary and situations translated from the football scene has made for many the perfect twist. From the streaker (all the animals are naked, but a recently sheared lamb is more naked than the rest) to the ranchers complaining about the zebras, in the body of both a referee and a real zebra, we have been surprised again and again by the twists that are no more than typical effect following cause of established rules.

One famous twist happens Aesop fable of the Snake and the Farmer. Used to happy endings, we expect the kindness of the farmer reviving the snake to be repaid. But in the end, the bitten and now poisoned farmer asks the snake why he returned kindness with cruelty: “you knew I was a snake”. So again, natural real-world cause-and-effect already established in the story creates the twist.

WRITING EXERCISE: For you present Work-In-Progress, review your twists. Do all follow rules you have already defined in the story?

READING EXERCISE: Think about a twist you did not like in a story you read. Why didn’t it work for you?

My Attempt: Flash: Magical Menace Mode Part Two – Special Meeting (2/1/2026) – The group of friends discover not everyone is seeing the same thing. Now they have to figure out who is seeing what.