Christopher Pike's Writing Advice

Chapter Six: How To Plot A Novel

When I began writing, I used to plot my books from beginning to end. I couldn't imagine starting a novel without knowing what the climax would be. I used to think -- I don't want to waste my time and energy going in the wrong direction. I need to know exactly where I'm going. I think I was influenced by the fact that I was a computer programmer. Before writing a COBAL program for an IBM 360 -- which is the language and the machine I worked with back in those prehistoric days -- I would create what was called a "flowchart." The flowchart would list all the sub-routines that would allow me to reach a specific goal. I'd never write a program without working out a logical path to my goal -- no one in the field did.

Alas, fiction writing is much more than a logical exercise, which is not to say that careful plotting ahead of time is a mistake. Actually, I think many of today's bestselling books could do with a healthy dose of logic. But, again, what works for one writer does not necessarily work for another.

I've changed as I've gotten older. Maybe I have more faith in my subconscious. These days, I often start a novel with no idea where it's going. With STRANGE GIRL, I didn't even know who Aja was, the heroine in the story. Like Fred, my hero, I knew nothing about her. Yet I'm confident Strange Girl is by far the best book I've ever written.

I choose to write a book when I get a sudden idea for a story or an image of an extraordinary character -- accompanied by a huge surge of energy. What the hell does that mean? I don't know, I just get it now and then. And if I dwell on the concept or the character, the book starts to take form inside my mind and I begin to write it down.

Of course, I often start books I never finish. Just last night while talking to Abir, my girlfriend, I got an idea for a novel. I told her about it and she listened closely and when I was done speaking she told me that she felt I had the perfect setting for a wonderful novel but that I had the wrong story. And just like that, I came up with another idea that fit into the world I had described to her. An idea that had nothing to do with my original idea, although the characters and the location of the story remained unchanged.

Now I know, and I apologize, that this sounds like one of those crazy channeling experiences. All I can say is that's what happened. The idea for the book came to me as I explained it to Abir. To hear me talk, you'd think I'd thought about it for years. I just made it up as I went along. And when I finished talking I finally felt I had a story that could be as good as Strange Girl, which is what I had been searching for since I finished that book.

So what about the books I've been working on the last six months? I'm setting them aside, for now, and it's sad. Hopefully I'll get back to them someday. But for now I have to run with this new idea because I think it's awesome.

How do I plot a novel? I don't know. I wait for Zeus to hit me on the head with a thunderbolt. What I don't do is study what is selling and try to copy that. No, not even in Witch World II -- I came up with the idea for The Field in the early 90's. It's a coincidence that, to some people, it resembles other books.

There are no "totally" new ideas. But there are an infinite number of "partially" new ideas. I suspect they float around us in some vast astral field that surrounds the earth and which can be accessed on occasion by people who are either: stoned; desperate; depressed; crazy; bored; or writers. I don't know which category I fall into but if you do get a great idea, get to work and write about it and keep writing until you feel you've given it all you've got.