The Busy Writer's One-Hour Plot: The Busy Writer

By M. R. McAlister

If you're a busy writer who loves to write, but hates to plot… the One-Hour Plot System is just what you've been looking for!

You will have a better chance of writing your book quickly and easily if:

• You know what your characters want,
• You know why they want it, and
• You know how they plan to get it.

That's where The Busy Writer's One-Hour Plot comes in. It shows you how to sit down with a timer and a handful of index cards, and work out a solid framework for your story… in just 60 minutes.

 

You will discover:

• How to prime the pump (so the ideas flow during that 60 minutes)
• How to tweak your plot (you have the framework–now start fleshing it out)
• How to use sub-plots
• How to write a good ending
• How to add a twist
• Where to find further resources (because good writers are always thirsty for more knowledge!)

Everyone can spare an hour. At the end of it, armed with The Busy Writer's One-Hour Plot, you could also have the beginnings of your own best-seller.

 

What do other writers say?

"I've just tried the one-hour plot and loved it! I had no idea how the story would end so this surprised me... this is fast and doesn't let me procrastinate." Sharon Halasz

 

"I closed the door. I muted the mobile. I set the timer for an hour. I started with an idea and I went from there… When the timer buzzed an hour later I had an outline of the plot: setting, character motivation, obstacles, action, character growth and the all-important ending. I had a working outline of my next novel!" Margaret Warner.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Gem Publishing
• Release date: May 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9798201771690

Book preview

Introduction

On the Internet, you’ll find millions of pages of advice about how to plot a work of fiction. Millions of pages… billions of words. 

You can find out how to plot a mystery, a romance, a book for kids, or a fantasy novel.

You can read about ‘story arcs’ and turning points; about story hooks and denouements. 

You can discover information about subplots and story threads and how to braid scenes together and… well, I could go on forever. And so could you: you could spend days, weeks, and years gorging on information about how to plot. (I typed how to plot a novel into Google and 12 seconds later had 69,400,000 results. I felt faint at the prospect of trolling through that lot.) 

There are a lot of gold nuggets in all that information, and you’ll find quite a few people who have published books on plotting. Some of these people are also popular authors, and they know what they’re talking about. However, not all of those methods will suit you because writers are all so different. 

Some writers feel comfortable only when they plot exhaustively: they go into enormous detail with their plots. Others are ready to roll after scrawling a quick mind-map onto a napkin or jotting down a list of bullet points on a page.

Then there are the ‘pantsers’—so-called because they fly by the seat of their pants when they write. They type Chapter One, and off they go, often with nothing more in mind than an opening scene or a character. 

Where do you fit in?

If you’re a ‘pantser’ (and this is how I started my writing career, at age 9!) then you may zoom happily from the first paragraph to the last, making up stuff as you go and being perfectly happy with the result. Or… you may write yourself into a corner in, say, the fourth chapter and have no idea how to get out of it. Or your novel may suffer from the dreaded ‘sagging middle’ syndrome because you haven’t got enough ‘stuff’ happening. 

If you’re a write-by-numbers person, you might find that you are happy only if you have a detailed, chapter-by-chapter outline before starting the first sentence. To you, starting a book without knowing where you’re going would be akin to orienteering without a compass. 

The big trap here is that by the time you’ve plotted your book scene-by-scene and chapter-by-chapter, you can be so sick of the story that it languishes after Chapter Two. Another problem for the obsessive plotter is that they focus too much on the plot and not enough on technique—the story may have a two-thumbs-up plot but fail to engage the reader. 

Then there is the middle ground, where most of us find ourselves. We like to know where we’re going, but we want a plot to be flexible. If we get an idea for a plot twist, we like the freedom to run with it and see where it goes. 

That’s where the One-Hour Plot comes in. 

It gives enough detail to satisfy – but leaves plenty of wriggle room. And best of all, IT TAKES ONLY