PJO & HP for Dummies

Planning! 📝

Before you actually start writing your story, I suggest you plan it first. The first steps of planning are simple: 

1. Make a title ✔️

2. Make a cover ✔️

3. Make a summary ✔️

4. Create your OC(s) ✔️

5. Think of a love interest maybe (I failed on this step, took me a whole ass year to decide, I'm sorry everyone 😭) ✔️

6. Now... you gotta plan the plot. That's the hard part. 

PLANNING YOUR BOOK:

You should know how to start it, how to end it, and some major points in-between them. There are many methods of planning, but I'll show you how I do it (mainly because I don't know any other way lol)

I'll use my story as an example: Eudaimonia

Here's my story plan: 

(I put all my notes in an unpublished book in Quotev, I don't know why I don't put in Wattpad, but whatever)

So as you can see, I plan my books in a timeline format. I even have a key at the top that tells me which one's a Harry Potter plot point (bold) and which one is from PJO (italics). The ones in regular font is a plot point entirely made by me. 

Most of the things you see there are just... somewhat major-ish plot points. My plan's pretty detailed but that's because I go online to look at timeline's so I know which event happens and in which order. I just put those events into my story plan and add in whatever I want. 

I just need to look at my story plan and go "Oh, chapter one should be about the Quidditch World Cup", then when I make the chapter, I center it around the Quidditch World Cup and fill in all the little plot points that come with it. 

Please you guys, I gave you the advice about going online to look at timelines, pleeeaaasssseee use them. They are VERY useful. Timelines give us every plot point that happens in the books, they pretty much summarize what happens in every chapter so you don't have to reread the books every single damn time because you couldn't remember shit like "hey did the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students come before Moody started teaching about the Imperius Curse or was that after??"

Most of us forget small plot points that actually happen in the book. This is why using timelines are important because, like I said, it summarizes everything that happens in each chapter. Utilize them so you don't end up being like: "Wait a second, Harry, Ron, and Hermione actually go to Hogsmeade to visit Sirius?? I forgot all about that! I could've written a scene of it with my OC!" 

So anyways, yes, look online for timelines so you can actually plan how your book goes. And then once you start writing, you can fill in all the little details that come between them.