This past weekend in #diymfa chat, we had a great discussion about outlines and whether we plotted out our stories in detail or wrote by the seat of our pants.  As you can imagine, the responses were as varied as the number of people in the chat.

This discussion got me thinking about my own writing.  I’m not a seat-of-my-pants writer–not even a little–but I hate traditional outlines.  Something about long lists (I.A, 2.b–it’s all Greek to me) just doesn’t work for my visual brain.  I think it’s my background in design that means those outlines are too logical and sequential for me.  To that end, I wanted to share some plotting devices that have worked better for me.  These techniques help me organize my writing without killing the spontaneity.

I give a detailed How-To for this technique in the first DIY MFA.  Unlike traditional techniques, this type of outline forces you to look at a topic from multiple different angles. It also makes it easy for you to see an entire project in one glance, rather than having to read through line-by-line to get a sense of the full story.

How to Apply this to Fiction: Try mind-mapping your story or novel by making each of the main branches as chapter topics or major events in the story.  The sub-branches can be scenes that sub-divide these larger branches.  There are no rules with mind-mapping so feel free to doodle and make notes (I use thought bubbles and speech bubbles to add notes to my mind maps, as you can see in the image.)

Here’s a mind map I used to brainstorm the very first DIY MFA back in September.

Story Maps
I love subway maps.  What can I say, I’m a New Yorker so it’s in my blood.  Recently, I started outlining stories using New York-style subway maps.  Just as subway lines intersect, different subplots weave in and out of the main plot thread in a novel or short story.  I like to think of writing as a journey so to me, this idea of mapping out a story works for me.

How to Apply this to Fiction: The different threads in a story are in different colors.  Scenes in each thread are marked as subway stops.  If a scene applies to more than one story thread, then it becomes an intersection.  What I love about this technique is that when I sit down to write a scene, all I’m writing is a “dot” of the story.  Dot’s aren’t big and scary; they’re cute and round.  They’re just dots for crying out loud.  Somehow in my mind, it seems a lot more manageable.

Tip: If the subway concept doesn’t work for you, think of this as a road map instead.  The main story threads are interstates, subplots are smaller roads and the dots are the stops you make along the way.

Here’s a subway map I designed to use for DIY MFA.

Scene Cards

This technique is super-portable, which is one of the reasons I love it.  Take a stack of index cards and make one card for each scene you know needs to happen in your story.  What’s nice about this technique is that you don’t have to write the scenes in order (you can move the cards around), and you can always add more cards later if you think you need them. 

How to Apply this to Fiction: On each card write the following information.

•  Scene Title: Something easy to remember like “Scene where Jimmy falls from the tree.”
• Characters: Who’s in this scene?
• Events: What happens?
• Setting: Where are we?
• Purpose: Why do you need this scene? (Character development? Important plot point? Reveal important information?)  This last one is important because if you can’t think of a purpose for the scene then you have to question whether you need the scene at all.

Some computer programs actually have an index card function built in (Scrivener, for instance) which is nice because it makes editing and moving the cards around even easier.  I still like the old-fashioned method because it means I can grab a handful of cards and take it with me anywhere.

Homework: Choose one technique and try it out. Then tell us about it in the comments or on twitter!

This writing tool was inspired by the board game Clue. You know, the game where you win by saying something like: “It’s Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with the revolver!”

As a toy designer in a past life, I had the opportunity to tease apart different games and see how they worked on a fundamental level.  The game Clue was always one of my favorites because it essentially comes down to telling a mystery story using only four elements: a character (one of the suspects), a situation (the murder), a setting (one of the rooms), and a prop (one of the murder weapons).

That got me thinking that storytelling really boils down to two things: a character plus a situation (preferably one rife with conflict). The props and settings add detail to make the stories unique, but ultimately, a character in a conflict-filled situation is what makes a story. From that idea came this prompt builder technique that I’ve used with various groups of students.

What I love about this technique is that with one index card and one standard die, I can have over 1,200 possible writing prompts at my fingertips. Also this writing tool is completely customizable so if you write a certain genre, you can tweak the different lists to make them more applicable to your own writing. I myself have devised various versions of this activity, including one for fables and fairy tales to use with younger students, and one mega-set that has over 28,000 possible combinations!  Talk about prompts that will last a lifetime.

Today I’d like to share with you the pocket-sized version.

Instructions: Copy the four lists below onto one index card or into a pocket-sized notebook (make sure to include the headers “character,” “situation,” “prop,” and “setting”). Roll the die four times to determine which item you’ll use from each list. Now write.

1.  Child Prodigy
2.  Driver’s Ed Instructor
3.  Shopping Mall Santa
4.  Clerk at MegaMart
5.  Father of 12
6.  Wedding Planner

1.  Runs into an Ex
2.  Visits a Psychic
3.  Discovers a Secret
4.  Has to Hitchhike
5.  Loses a Bet
6.  Flunks a Test

1.  Red Shoes
2.  Evidence of a Crime
3.  Superstition
4.  Regret
5.  Mask
6.  Someone Else’s Spouse

1.  Wedding
2.  Funeral
3.  Middle of Nowhere
4.  Fancy Hotel
5.  Rowboat
6.  Beach

Today’s technique is one I learned from my thesis adviser and I found it so helpful that it’s stayed with me.  While you can use this technique to develop your own stories, you can also use it as a method of analyzing stories that you read.  Today, I’d like you to take a few minutes and read Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find.

This story is one of my favorites in terms of plot development because while it follows the ABC method beautifully, it is by no means predictable.  In fact, even though you know what’s going to happen, it’s one of the most suspenseful stories I’ve read.  What keeps you reading is the How.  You might have a hunch what the ending will be but you want to know how we get there.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  First the ABC method of Story Analysis.

A = Action.  The action sets the story in motion.  Some teachers give this a fancy name–“inciting incident”–but really all that means is that an action has to kick-start the story.  (Tip: If it takes too long for an action kick in, maybe you need to start the story closer to where the action starts.)

B = Background.  At some point early in the story, you need to establish who these characters are and what their story is.  This doesn’t mean giving pages and pages of back-story.  Rather, a few well-placed details can give us all the background we need.

C = Conflict.  This is probably the most important element in your story.  Without conflict, you might have a great sequence of events or a lovely character study, but you don’t have a story.  90% of the time, the conflict comes from the character wanting something and an obstacle getting in his/her way.

D = Development.  Most of the story or novel occurs in this phase.  This is where we see various obstacles get in the character’s way.  This is where subplots emerge.

E = Ending.  The ending consists of 3 C’s: Crisis, Climax and Consequences.

• Crisis: The events leading up to the climax.
• Climax: This is the final showdown, the big event at the end of the story/novel where everything unravels.
• Consequences: Also called “Denouement” is where some or all of the plot threads are tied together.

Now you know the ABC method, I’d like you to look at the Flannery O’Connor sometime this week and try to identify the different elements in that story.  It’s not a very long story, but take your time with it and really try to pick apart how O’Connor crafts this story.  The ABC elements are your guide.

Homework:  This week I would like you to read and analyze A Good Man is Hard to Find.  In addition, today, I’d like you to take at a piece of your own writing and examine it using the ABC method.  Jot down some notes on how elements A-E and the 3C’s function in your piece.

What did you discover from your analysis?  Did you notice any elements missing from your story?

Hello Friends of iggi!

Welcome to Week 2 of DIY MFA.  Last week we talked about using characters to spark ideas.  Now we’ll be shifting gears and looking at story elements that can generate ideas.

Today we’ll be talking about Morphological Forced Connections, a technique I learned when taking a creativity seminar in graduate school.  I’ve blogged about this technique in DIY MFA before, but this time we’re taking a slightly different approach.  Before, we used this technique to brainstorm ideas for new stories but today we’ll be applying it to your current work-in-progress.

What you need:
• Paper and pencil
• Random.org

Step 1: Answer the following questions.

• What does your character want?
• List at least 5 possible obstacles that will get in the way.
• List a set of worst-case scenarios that could happen.
• List a set of settings where the big show-down could happen should a worst-case scenario occur.
• 4 possible outcomes to the story:

1. Character gets what he/she wants.
2. Character doesn’t get what he/she wants.
3. Character decides he/she wants something else.
4. Character gets what he/she wants but realizes he/she didn’t really want it.

Step 2: Make a pretty little chart, like this:

Option 1          Option 1                 Option 1        1.  Gets what he wants
Option 2          Option 2                 Option 2        2.  Doesn’t get what he wants
Option 3          Option 3                 Option 3        3.  Wants something else
   etc.                    etc.                         etc.            4.  Doesn’t really want it

Note that for this exercise, you don’t have to make the same number of options in each column.  You can brainstorm as many options for the first three columns as you like.  The only column with a set number of options is the outcome because there are four basic possibilities.

Step 3: Use Random.org to choose an option from each of the four lists.  Random.org will choose numbers at random from 1 to whatever number you choose.  Just plug in how many options you have for each column and it will pick one at random.

Step 4: Write!  Take that show-down scene where the worst-case scenario happens and write that scene.

Homework: Try out this technique, then check-in in the comments, to let us know how it went!