17 Jun 2023
Mile 8 & 9: Plotting with Post-its, plus: Writing with the ending in mind
🏃Welcome to Mile 8 & 9 of Novel Marathon – The 2023 Edition! 🏃
When it comes to writing styles, we talk about “planners” and “pantsers” as if they are two different species – as in “men are from Mars, women are from Venus.” 🙄 And maybe that’s true for some people. However, by and large, humans are more interesting than that.
I was researching different tools for plotting and came across a medium post from author Julie Cohen, where she talks about how her method of using post-it notes can be useful when you’ve already written thousands of words – in fact, rather than using post-it notes to invent a plot from scratch, she uses them to DISCOVER the structure of what she’s already written. That’s right! Post-its can be as much an analytical as a generative tool.
I was intrigued after reading the medium post above and decided to invest in Julie’s online class. It took me a Saturday morning to watch the short lessons and do the exercises, and it’s really changed my approach to plotting.
The exercises in the course are simple, don’t take much time, yet were super effective at demonstrating the power of Post-its. Julie’s an excellent teacher – it shows that she has taught versions of this class many times. If you want to learn more about plotting, and your writing style is a mix of planning and pantsing, I highly recommend Julie’s class. And I don’t get paid for saying so!
Since taking the class, I bought a mix of small and large post-it notes in different colors and have started mapping out my book – including making sense of what I’ve written so far.
Personally, I’m using small blue post-its for regular story beats (stuff that happens, jotted down in a single sentence or word) and small pink post-its for structural story events (inciting incident, one-quarter twist, strong middle, three-quarter turn, plot twists, etc.) I arranged those post-its on letter-size printer paper which I’ve taped together with Scotch tape to form one long document that is multiple pages long. When I unfold it I can see the structure of my story, the story arc that goes from left to right. On the last two pages I use big yellow post-its for my characters (one post-it per character) and small green ones for the main locations where my book takes place.
But here’s the real beauty of Julie’s method: You can use whatever colors, whatever sizes, and whatever structure that fits YOUR book. Taking the class has helped me see how flexible this method really is. That’s what makes it fun: You can make it your own.
Writing a novel is scary. This method of using post-its allows us to tackle some difficult structural challenges with little colored pieces of paper. If you make a mistake no big deal, just toss out the culprit and grab a new one, you have a whole stack of ‘em! That’s the magic. I’m glad I stumbled over this plotting hack – maybe you’ll find it useful too!
Lisa Cohen’s medium post: https://medium.com/novel-gazing/post-it-plotting-d886194bf375
Lisa’s class: https://novel-gazing-with-julie-cohen.teachable.com/p/using-post-its-to-transform-your-writing
📚 Required reading
Ch. 17-20 in The One Year Novelist
Ch. 10, 11 & 15 in Story Genius
🌟 Extra credit
Pgs. 40-47 in This Year You Write Your Novel
Pgs. 24-31 in Refuse To Be Done
👟 Explore using Post-its to structure your writing
Lay out what you’ve written so far
Use one Post-it per story beat. Lay it out however you like.
Use a different color for key narrative turning points (inciting incident, one-quarter twist, etc.)
👟 Write with the ending in mind
Fast forward: How will you end your book. Will your protagonist win? Will they lose? Will there be a partial victory, where they lose something but gain something else?
Is there a big a-ha moment, when the protagonist faces a final choice or final battle?
And once you know what the ending might look like, what scenes do you need to get there?
For more writing prompts, go to:
novelmarathon.com/newsletter 💌
