Mélanie and I just got back from a lovely few days in New York, including fun visits with my editor and agent. There we are above at the Nancy Yost Literary offices. I’m revising The Paris Affair, I just got copy edits for His Spanish Bride, the novella about Malcolm and Suzanne’s wedding, and I’m starting to plot the next Malcolm and Suzanne book, which is one of my favorite parts of the writing process.
I love talking about writing, so I thought it would be fun to start working some writing craft posts into the blog. I’ve always been the sort of writer who plots in advance. I used to write down plot elements and scene ideas on index cards and then lay them out on my dining room table, shuffle around the order, look for gaps in the plot. It’s a great way to build the story arc, though my cats have a tendency to walk over the cards and wreak havoc on my plot order.
Then, in the midst of writing Imperial Scandal, I discovered the writing software program Scrivener. I love Scrivener for numerous reasons, but one is that it has a corkboard built in. You can lay out scenes on index cards, switch to a writing review to draft a scene, then switch back to the corkboard. Because of this, with The Paris Affair, which is the first book I wrote completely in Scrivener, I found I could write as I was plotting. If knew a scene had to occur later in the narrative, I could jump ahead and write it while I was still working out plot details earlier in the story. I spend a lot of time mulling when I’m working out a plot, and this way I was able to write while I was mulling.
Any questions about plotting? What other parts of the writing process would you like to see posts about? Writers, what’s your plotting process? What tools have you found that help with it?
I’ve just posted a new Fraser Correspondence letter from Mel/Suzette to Simon.
Tracy Grant - Novelist 
June 25, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Thank you for your writing ideas and the joy you take in the 3/5 card!!
June 26, 2012 at 12:10 am
I’m always curious to learn more about an author’s writing process… it’s really useful for beginners!
About plotting… how do you weave plotting and research? How much research do you do before plotting and after? By now, you must have a thourough knowledge of the era you’re writing about but what about when you started writing?
And where do your ideas come from?
June 26, 2012 at 6:31 am
Thanks, Jorja! I do love 3×5 cards for plotting – such a great way to jot down ideas and begin to organize them.
June 26, 2012 at 8:06 am
Great questions, Céline! I usually interweave the research and plotting. I have to do some research to start – often the plot idea comes from research. But then I need to start thinking about the plot to figure out what direction my research needs to take. I do feel I know the era pretty well now, but it seems as though there’s always more to learn. I did spend more time studying fashions and furnishings and things like how carriages worked in the beginning though.
My ideas come from all over. With Vienna Waltz, I’d wanted to write about the Congress for ages. The idea for that book began with Suzanne summoned by a woman only to find the woman murdered and her husband bending over the body, with Metternich and Tsar Alexander soon arriving which in turn grew out of my research into the real life women who were involved with both men. Then it was a question of playing “what if” – why did the princess invite her lovers and Malcolm and Suzanne on the same evening, etc… Imperial Scandal also began with the opening scene – the ambush at the chateau. With Paris Affair, I knew I wanted the murder victim to be threatened by the post-Waterloo White Terror. My idea for my new book came from thinking about Shakespeare.