How To Use Free Mind, Part One: Creating A Simple Plot

It’s been a while since I blogged, and I thought I’d start blogging regularly again. The idea for this 3-part blog series came to me randomly while using the free mind map software called “Free Mind”, which you can download here (it lists the versions by operating system).

I’ve found mind mapping to be an effective way to just get an idea down on paper, without worrying about structure or character development or anything specific about the story. When you mind map a plot in particular, you just focus on the basics first and anything specific later.

The basic things you’d need for your mind map are:

·         Title

·         Main Character(s)

·         Conflict

·         Theme

·         Setting(s)

·         Genre(s)

 

For an example, I’ll show you the mind map process I’d use if I were to mind map an old story I wrote years ago, back when I had no clue what the rules of writing were. If I were to rewrite it now, it would need a major reworking of both the plot and the characters. But for the sake of the mind map example, it will also allow me to keep it simple.   

The story, at its core, was a coming-of-age fantasy (specifically, portal fantasy) novel, about a girl named Lucille who discovers a mystical doorway in a forest and a wolf chained by that door. The wolf—a shape shifter—explains that he has been waiting for years and years for someone to set him free and for that someone to journey back to the world beyond the door, and help him vanquish the evil. Now, we have our basic idea.

Opening Free Mind, you should get a blank mind map. If not, go to File> New to get a fresh mind map.

In the middle of the page you should get something like this:

 

 

 

       Click that circle and you should be able to edit the text inside the circle (called a “node”)

Here’s where we insert our title: SAPPHIRE PRINCESS. Depending on your novel, the title will be different. If you are still trying to figure out your title, put: WIP in the node bubble. To help figure out your novel’s title, I wrote a previous blog post on finding titles here.

Next, right-click that bubble and you should get a lot of options. Click the option with the light bulb, labeled ‘New Child Node’. A line should appear with a text box.

Label this text box: Main Characters.

 



Next, who are your main heroes? Do you have a name for them? If so, right-click the Main Characters node and click New Child Node (or press: Insert, on the keyboard) however many times to insert one or more main characters. In this case, I have at least four main characters: Lucille, who is the main heroine. Her mentors—the wolf-shifters—Akoto and Silver and, finally, the main villain, Resmiel.

Within each character’s text node, write as many attributes about them that you know. Age, gender, race, odd clothes or physical looks, favorite color or pet, anything specific to them within the story like powers, or their past, or their role within the story—anything that comes to mind.

If you can’t figure out something or if there is a reason for that trait important to the book, write the question or elaborated answer in a child node connected to that particular trait, like in the example below:

The next thing you should put in a node is: Conflict. Conflict could be as simple as your character missing the bus and having to get to their destination another way, or as complex as saving the world from alien invaders. A few questions to ask yourself when considering the different threads of conflict are:

·         What or who will your characters face in the story?

·         What will your hero have to face in regards to the villain?

·         What will he/she need to come to terms with?

·         What will tear her down, both physically and mentally?

·         What will be her goal/goals within the story?

·         What or who will stand in her way, in regards to succeeding those particular goals?

Create a child node from Conflict to include each main character. Then create nodes from their names, put a possible conflict or conflicts, and add additional details (in more nodes) if required. Some conflicts will involve each character or will be between two characters (such as the main hero and the villain). For this example, I’ve just done a few regarding the character Lucille.

 

Creating a new node from the title node, the next thing you will detail is: Theme. Theme is possibly the most challenging thing to boil down in a book. What are we trying to say, beyond all those perfectly constructed metaphors? What are we trying to tell the readers? What does this scene, this character, this idea, object or symbol contribute to the overall book, to the big picture—the theme of the book? Your theme could be anything from racism, to good vs evil to love conquers all…so long as the scenes and the plot reflect it.

Next would be Setting. Where does your story take place? What time period? What’s the name of your city or town or fictional world?  What details about the place(s) are important? Put them in nodes if needed.

 

 

Finally, the final node you can add is: Genre. What is your novel? Where would you put it on shelves? Would it be a paranormal romance? A fantasy? A historical? A science-fiction novel? As each genre has its rules and requirements regarding plot, it’s important you know what exactly you’re going to write. You can’t have novels straddling too many genres, otherwise it gets confusing for both readers and publishers to know exactly what group and to whom this book is marketed for.

 

Hopefully this process, while time-consuming, will be helpful in creating a sort of outline and a plot for your novel.

Stay tuned for part two of this series, How To Use Free Mind, Part Two: Figuring Out Character Conflict.

 

Thanks for reading!

- HC



Plotter or Pantser

Plotter- those who plot things out.

Pantser- those who fly by the seat of their pants.

Not the legal definition I’m sure, but ever wonder which method produces more successful authors? Do the methodical win out over the spontaneous? I have to say, I’ve been curious about the breakdown. Do more writers get published who rely on careful planning or do the ones who wing it triumph?

Don’t mistake me. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer for this. Everyone has their own style whether it involves outlines and pages of notes or a shot in the dark. Both ways can produce amazing results.

Being too lazy to try and discover what method famous authors’ favor, I can only tell you about unpublished me. As you might guess from the comment above, I’m a pantser. My current work in progress began with only the opening scene in my head and not much more. But is that the whole story?

I think there is more to being a pantser than meets the eye. Although I don’t write anything down, that doesn’t mean I don’t plan. I usually spend days just thinking before I type a word. Generally, I have the whole chapter in my mind and even a direction for what happens down the road. It’s the details with dialogue or setting that usually spring out of nowhere, not the plot itself.

And I have been known to digress, to delve into the world of a plotter. On my opening chapter, I jotted down everything I wanted the chapter to achieve. Opening chapters have to be such workhorses that I didn’t want to leave anything out. And when I got to the ending chapters, I was petrified. How could I wrap up all the details and bring everything together without forgetting a major part? I couldn’t decide in what direction I wanted to take the ending. Who should live and who should die? When to reveal what? I started noting down key items to remember. And that spread to include more and more elements until I had—gasp—a crazy mixed up mess in no order at all.

I began to color code the mess. Items in red were open threads that I hadn’t decided how to resolve. Items in orange were already written and finished. Items in green were resolved in my head, but not written in the ms. Blue items were things I might include, but maybe not. As I got through chapter after chapter, the red parts turned green and finally orange. The blue words disappeared. My notes ended up being amazingly helpful. Who knew!

Would I ever work out an outline for an entire novel ahead of time? I’m way too lazy. Will I use a crazy mess of a system to aid my memory? That’s for sure.

All in all, it doesn’t matter a hill of beans how you get the job done. What matters is maintaining the pace and making sure the plot stays firmly at center stage. No outline in the world will keep you from letting the characters yack about unimportant matters or descriptions from going on forever. Writers have to be able to judge that from experience.

And where do you get experience when you aren’t published? Reading. Reading. Reading. Reading other published novels can teach you about pacing. It’s the example to follow to make sure every chapter advances the plot and isn’t a limp, useless biscuit of rambling.
 

What say we have our own informal poll? Don’t deny it, we’re all curious. We want to know what floats the other one’s boat. Plotter or pantser? How far do you take preparedness? Or avoid it?

Bloggerific: MADELAINE BAUMAN--Outlining

I’ve heard people say outlining works for them, and I’ve heard a few people say it kills the creativity. But why is that? Like writers have different styles and writing habits, they also have different ways of outlining their works, getting the notes down on paper so that the ideas don’t fade away.

Today, I’m going to tell you three different ways to outline.


1) The Bare Bones Method

What I call the “Bare Bones Method” is when the story is written down but the concepts are barely or not fleshed out at all.

If you are interested in knowing how to do this method, here’s how I did it:

Title: Chronicles of the North, Book # 1: “Behind the Door of Many Runes”
Genre: Action/Adventure/ Romance
Summary: Follow the tale of Lucille Sari, a young woman who discovers an ancient kingdom with a tragic past behind the Door of Many Runes: Winter’s Heart. On her journey, she is burdened with the revenge of a demon and with an abandoned throne at stake; she must call upon her two wolf guardians, Silver and Akoto, for help.

Was the throne reclaimed or did darkness prevail?

Outline

(Story begins with a page in Lucille’s journal. Story then switches to Lucille before the journey.)

Fifteen-year-old Lucille Sari dreamt of an abandoned castle, not knowing she has an inheritance: A sapphire-stone castle far in the Northern Point of the Compass. Mishaps bring her to ruin of a castle. Her guardian, Akoto, a man trapped in wolf form by an ancient spell, had a dark role to play with the destruction of this castle. She is taken to a shrine, where a goddess of the hunt speaks to her about a prophecy.

A few weeks later, on the borderline between the end of the fall equinox and beginning of winter, a red light begins glowing around a ring and is humming. Lucille is warned not to touch the ring, but curiosity beckons her to touch it. It flares with a burst of red flame and Lucille is plunged into a dream (Dream-like vision) and learns the catastrophic history of the North…

And so on and so forth. As Donald Maass says in his novel, Writing the Breakout Novel: “The best outlines relate the whole story in miniature, and include scraps of setting detail, characterization and dialogue, which nicely highlight the story’s turning points. Outlines are most effective when they are in the present tense and third person, regardless of the tense and person of the novel.” (pg 253)


2) The Script Method

If you break your novel up into a script-like format what would it look like? Probably a little something like this:

Chapter 1: An Unfortunate Case

Scene 1

Present Day (late afternoon)

Judy, a cop in her late thirties, is looking over the body of a murdered teenager. The teenager is her own daughter. The daughter is wearing a bloodied black hoodie and there is a large gash in her stomach. She is naked below the waist. Judy remembers the last words she and her daughter exchanged.

Flashback (night before):

Judy is sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in a robe. Her daughter comes down the stairs, dressed in that same hoodie and a pair of jeans. She tells Judy she will be home late. Used to her daughter’s late studying nights, Judy thinks nothing of it, but only says “Be careful.”

Present Day:

Judy turns away from the body and…etc.

This method allows for you to order scenes and keep the novel on track. I haven’t tried this method out, but who knows, it might work for those who are big on organization and for these novels that jump around in time a lot.


3) The Bullet Point Method

The “Bullet Point Method” is fairly simple. This is a method that, for me that has become a lifesaver when planning future scenes and, sometimes, entire chapters. And, simply put it’s a chapter in brief bullet points, similar to the “Bare Bones Method”, but even less specific. It allows for total creativity flow without the feeling that you’re writing the whole story right then and there.

So…what method(s) works for you?

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Madelaine Bauman is the author of Hybrid Blood, a current work in progress. Feel free to stop by her BLOG and read some of her other posts, or visit her Facebook PAGE.