Plotting a Novel in 10 Steps

This brief outline of plotting a novel in 10 steps is intended as a handy reference guide, not a self-explanatory article on how to plot a novel.

It is a summary of all of the steps described in detail in the major articles on plotting fiction.

To read the detailed information on plotting a novel, you can click on the main headings below. Otherwise, just use the page to get a snapshot of the entire plotting process.

Plotting the Novel's Beginning

1. Start With the Status Quo

Introduce your central character living in their ordinary world. Nothing has happened yet. It is just a normal day...

2. And Then Something Happens

The status quo is disrupted, and the result of this plot-triggering event is that the character now has an overall goal - something they must achieve if their life is ever to become stable again.

3. The Character Makes a Decision to Act

Before they commit to their goal, they will probably experience a period of hesitation. Eventually, though, they focus on what they must do and set out to achieve it.

(The first 3 steps are dealt with in detail in Rising Action - Disrupting the Status Quo.)

Plotting the Novel's Middle

4. The First Mini Plot

The character's overall, novel-length goal is played out in a series of mini plots. These are the individual stages of their long journey towards the ultimate "prize" they seek.

Each mini plot consists of an action phase, in which the character encounters opposition while trying to achieve a mini goal, and a reaction phase, in which they react emotionally to what has just happened and arrive at a new plan of action.

5. More Mini Plots

This is the pattern you keep repeating throughout the entire middle section of the novel:

• Mini Plot follows Mini Plot...
• Action follows Reaction follows Action...

The character will experience small victories along the way, but plenty more setbacks. They keep pushing on, though, and somehow edge closer and closer to achieving the object of their quest.

6. Rock Bottom

But then disaster strikes. Just when they think they are finally about to succeed in reaching their overall goal, it is snatched away from them and their dream appears to be as good as dead.

(I look at the middle 3 steps in Plot Development - The Tricky Middle.)

Plotting the Novel's Ending

7. Reaction

They lay low for a long time here. They are metaphorically dead. They have given their all and they have nothing left inside.

8. Rebirth

But then an epiphany makes them realize where they have been going wrong all this time and what they must now do to succeed.

This is the moment when the character experiences internal change (thus bringing to a close the novel's "internal" plot). It is their new-found inner strength which allows them to go on and "seize the prize"...

(Steps 7 and 8 are covered in detail in Character Transformation - Reaction & Rebirth.)

9. Seizing the Prize (or Not)

Armed with their new strength and knowledge, they fight the final battle - and they win (thus bringing to a close the novel's "external" plot).

This ninth step of the process has an alternative way of playing out. They can decide that, actually, the thing they have been trying to achieve all this time is not what they want.

(See The Denouement - Seizing the Prize for more.)

10. The New Status Quo

And so they have reached a stable situation at last - albeit a different stable situation to the one they were in right at the beginning. They have changed inside, and their external world will also be different.

(I cover this tenth and final step of plotting a novel in Falling Action - The New Status Quo.)

Next Up: A Plot Diagram...