Plotting Your Novel

Plotting is the arrangement of events that occur in your story.
Start with our most popular post about plotting:

29 Plot Templates

Or find what you need in the article list.

• Plotting: The Messy Doorway to Story
• Subplots: Keeping Other Story Lines in Check
• Does Your Scene Pivot: Creating Turning Points
• Science Fiction and Fantasy Worldbuilding: Timeline Adds Crucial Details
• Pacing: Space out the Tense Moments
• Scenes: The Skeleton of a Novel
• 6 Questions to Sharpen Your Story Beats and Make Your Plot Sing
• Don’t Plot Like I Do!
• General to Specific: From One Sentence to a Plot
• Thanks, Optimus Prime: What the Transformers Can Teach Us About Plot
• What Went Wrong? Story Conflict and How to Make it Stronger
• Good-bye Confusing Subplot, Hello Book Contract
• Chase: A Fast-Paced Plot
• 5 Quotes to Plot Your Novel By
• Timelines: Plotting
• Plotting the Middle with the Hero’s Journey
• Master Plot for Pacing, Characterization and Action
• Bad, Worse, Worst: Plan your Plots
• Why Now? Believable Plots
• Revise for Focus: Plot and Subplot in the Right Proportions
• SubPlots Deepen and Enrich Stories: Here’s How
• Plotting Act 2: 23 Ways to Defeat the Sagging Middle!
• PLOT: You MUST be Brutal
• End of Act I: 5 Functions Determine Plot
• 2 Questions to Develop Plot: What If? and What Next?
• Act 1: Lists and Discussions
• Best 9 Tips on Plotting a Novel in Verse: Advice from Caroline Starr Rose
• Plotting is Like a Jigsaw Puzzle
• Too Many Subplots? 3 Tips for Cutting
• Unlovable Characters
• 3-Act Structure: Solving a Top-Heavy Problem
• Developing Plot
• The Mesh of Plot and Subplot
• Goal v. Fighting for Something Positive
• Enrich a Story Plot
• Novel Pacing=Constant Change
• Combine 2 Plots?
• Scene Quiz: Harvard Bar Scene
• Dissect a Scene
• Plot, Plot Layers, Subplot
• 5 Plotting Mistakes
• Plotting with Scenes
• Agent Wants Plot
• 29 Plot Templates
• Outline level of Plot
• Plot & Character
• Plot maze
• Plot: My personal approach
• Plot: Software
• Plot Enhancers
• 4 More Plot Variations
• Plot: Characters v. Patterns
• Fatal Backstory
• Don’t Avoid the Emotion
• Outline scenes
• How to Use Scenes to Plot
• See How Easily You Can Subplot
• Novels That Spaghetti
• Page 32
• Revising the Outline
• Novel Revision for Lovers
• Backstory’s Emotional Weight
• Inventing Plot Complications
• Plotting Difficult Topics: Loss, action
• Plotting Difficult Topics: Loss, Grief
• Plotting Difficult Topics: Loss, guilt
• Plotting Difficult Topics: Loss, denial
• Plotting Difficult Topics: Wickedness, action
• Plotting Difficult Topics: Wickedness, grief
• Plotting Difficult Topics: Wickedness, Guilt
• Plotting Difficult Topics: Wickedness, denial
• Plotting Difficult Topics
• Outlining Fiction
• Shrunken Manuscript v. Spreadsheet Plotting
• Spreadsheet plotting
• Knitting Subplots Together
• Tie up loose ends
• Powerful Endings
• Connecting Emotional and Narrative Arcs
• Plot Twists
• Thinking up Twist Endings
• Twist endings
• Focus Your Story Development
• Pacing
• Novel Diagnosis–Plot
• Hero’s Journey
• Revising Outlines