The One Sentence
I try to plot. But I hardly ever manage it –at least not when I have just begun a story. Often before knowing my plot I know my characters. I know who they are, how they are related and how they look. Not having written about them before, I don’t know them completely but I know enough. I also tend to have a blurry image of the world they live in. And I know that once these characters come together in this blurry world something amazing is going to happen. My only problem is I don’t know what that something is.
In that moment, I begin my story. I concentrate from moving from one scene to the next, trying to figure out what is going to happen next. Most of the time, for the first few pages of the story, even if I do know what is going to happen, I don’t know why it is happening. I don’t know the point of the whole writing or where the current situation is going to lead me. But I keep going. Until, half way through the beginning of the story, I stop, because eventually I have to decide why someone is stuck in well while her brother is having a fist fight with her best friend. Or why two people are running down the street screaming. I know these are all smaller conflicts that are turning around a larger one. But what is that larger conflict? What is the plot of the story?
Outlines tend to be useless for me, unless I make them moments just before I use them. Otherwise, they tend to be deleted without being used or stored away in some file in my computer. So what I do is think of one sentence, like a prompt to guide me for the rest of the story. This prompt has one requisite: it must summarize the main conflict of my story. That one sentence becomes my plot. Once I have it, I keep writing.
Now perhaps this isn’t the most organized way to go about writing, but is the best way I can work. Of course there is always a little bit of planning in my stories. I write down notes and clues on notebooks. One thing I tend to do a lot is write the dialogue in a script form so that I can included later on in the story. But I don’t exactly plot in advance. Mostly I just keep writing, and then guide myself by that one sentence. I am pretty sure I am not the only one out there.
Fascinating. You wouldn’t like to give us an example or two of your one-sentence plot guides would you?
I write mostly novels these days and I do write plots – at least sketches – so that I can work out the pacing, any twists, or secrets that need to be kept or foreshadowed. But I can veer well away from my original plot as more and better ideas occur. What I do need to keep in mind all the time though are these two things, whose story it is and how the journey will change them. If I don’t keep reminding myself, the tale just rambles and isn’t as tight as I’d like it to be.
I’m working on my first novel. I had to write to get to know my characters. I’ve learned amazing things about their backstories, and the plot keeps changing, so I’m always mentally (and physically) revising. It’s a slow process, but the finished product will be the better for it, I think.
Graham, there was one short story I was working on recently for which the one sentence was something like: “Amy knows why Marcos has been institutionalized, everyone knows, but no one wants to share the story, until Amy realizes she must do it, she must write again in the blog she and her friend once started, and tell Marco’s story.” The technique is not a perfect one, I must admit. It’s just my way of giving myself guidance throughout the first draft. It usually works better for short stories, than it does for novels. And I always have to edit a lot. Currently I am working on a novel, and I have realized that I usually have to force myself to think of what is going to happen next before I write it, and even if I don’t draft the order of events, I do take notes on important details, like I said.
Kathy, writing a novel is always a slow process, but the best thing you can do is keep writing. There will always be time for editing in the end. If you focus in just writing, the novel will be finished faster. I mean, no matter how much editing you do while writing, there will always be something to fix when you finish. We all go back sometimes while writing, but it’s better to avoid it as much as possible. Good luck with the novel!
I think I tend to write very similarly in my process. I keep having some other writing friends insist I outline, but every time I try extensively outlining it just ends up junk by the end of the day, or I lose some of the joy of the story.
I do have particular scenes, even strong ones that enter my head before their part in the story, but I prefer the first write through to keep me wondering what’s going to happen next. It tends to give me more of a joy of discovery feeling of writing. When I know what’s going to happen from an outline, it becomes less of a page turner to write, and when I don’t have the motivation to turn the page I feel it reflects in my writing. If the outlines make me not want to turn the next page of writing to find out, why would I expect the actual writing I do to make the reader want to turn the page?
Though I fully understand there are other writers that can keep up that joy, but I have to have some thrill of story discovery my first time through or I lose interest. When it comes to strong future scenes in my head, there’s still that bit of mystery between what’s now and how it’ll get to that scene in the future.
I’ve never tried a one sentence plot though…I just usually have a general idea of what I want to do and where I want to end up and go with it. Nice blog post
Thanks for the comment, Saronai! You’re right, we do have a very similar way of writing. I too feel that if I write extensive outlines I will become disinterested in the story, so I outline just the strong scenes sometimes too, without knowing how to get there.
I love this concept since it fits more with how I write. Outlines have occasionally helped me in the past but normally I change the outline more times than I change the novel writing. I started using scenes and ideas to merge together but explaining in a sentance might work better for me. Thank you for sharing and I can’t wait to try the concept with my writing.