October Novel Prep Challenge

Towards the end of last year's October Prep Challenge, I hit on an idea that really worked for me in regards plotting. Though making no claims for originality, it helped me a lot when I was in the process of writing during NaNoWriMo, and so I thought I'd share it here.

I bought a small ring binder, and a blank sketch pad of the same size, I also splurged on a dedicated ring hole punch, but as I was on holiday at the time, I didn't have access to my desk one.

I made a page for every significant event in the story that I'd plotted out thus far, one per page. To these I then added their dependencies, and their consequences if relevant.

So for example:

MEETING

         ARCHINTO
         BRUNO

Decision to test Illiaster's abilities.

REQUIRES: Procurement of personal item of William Cecil.


This lists who is involved, what is discussed, and what needs to happen as a result.

Another example:

FERNDINAND LUCIUS de MONCLOA (Proconsul of Iberia)
VISITS ALBION and offers to marry BOUDICA
He brings gifts appropriate, some feminine, but also an astrolabe, signifying his awareness of her interests and personality.

She in turn gives jewellery crafted to recall Mithras, e.g. Taurectomy

DEPENDENT ON: Prior meeting between, Archinto, Bruno and Moncloa to agree proposal.

BOUDICA prevaricates and will not commit to the proposal or rule it out.


Having each plot development on a separate sheet, gave me a lot of flexibility. Additional requirements could be added in at the appropriate places, to maintain a consistent narrative.

When I was writing for NaNoWriMo, each of the many pages I produced for the plot outline became a prompt for my writing, ensuring that I didn't get lost, and nothing was missed. I was never at a loss what to try and write.