How to Write Teen Fiction

10 | Planning Your Plot

We know that planning your novel, looking out for plot holes, and staying organized are all difficult to keep up with. If your story is not properly plotted, it can mean that you lack an essential aspect of storytelling- keeping the reader engaged. With all that in mind, here are some tips for planning your plot!

An Idea Is Not Enough

You came up with your idea for your novel! Fantastic! Now comes the more important task- writing your story. Beginning the writing process can seem scary, but staying organized and holding yourself accountable can be thrilling.

The first thing you do must be to create an outline. Within your outline, you can organize the plot and other subplots, details, important information, and more.

Let's say you wanted to organize the different plots of Twilight. You might create something like this ...

Subplot 1: Bella Swan moves to her hometown of Forks, Washington, after her mother decides to go on the road with her partner for his baseball season.

Subplot 2: Bella attempts to be quiet at her new school but catches everyone's attention, including the gloomy handsome stranger Edward Cullen.

Subplot 3: Bella tries not to think too much about why Edward seems to hurt her but is caught off guard when he saves her life from a van in the school parking lot.

You see how the important details are not all smashed together. Instead, every important plot detail is divided to understand more. Read more about this here.

Understanding Your Main Plot and Subplots

So you know your main plot and then you broke down your subplots; what happens now?

Your main plot idea and subplots should sing together in harmony. You have to make sure that the ideas do not start to stray away from each other. This is why as you write, you can go back to your plan, look at what you have, and stick to it. Keeping that organization and structure will help in the long run when it comes to avoiding plot holes.

Get to Know Your Characters

Writing a character is like getting to know someone new. They have a first impression with you and then you learn more about their past. After each meeting, you know them. As you write, you get close to the characters you create. It can be hard to keep up with them, though, so you can outline who your characters are.

For Instance, if I were writing a new character named Tate, I would write out her basic background to keep up if I needed to when writing her. It might look something like this-

Name: Tate Doe

Age: 22

Physicality: Brown hair, Brown eyes, pale skin

From: Seattle

Living where: LA

Parents: Jack and Jane

You could add as much information to that list as you'd like, but having it could save you at a time when you vomit all over your computer. 

Do Your Research

Unless you are an expert in everything you write, you are going to need to do some research on your topics. Whether it be a job you want your character to have, a city they live in that you are not from, or even a band they love, you do not; everything big or small needs to be researched. To keep things organized, you could create a document with your research topics and the details you found.

Planning can seem exhausting but does pay off in the long run. It takes time to make something spectacular, so do not rush it!