The Idea-to-Plot Struggle: 14 Authors Give Their Best Strategies
Plus some thoughts on social media mental health and a board book publishing opportunity!
From the Writing Desk:
ONE MORE MONTH?? FOUR (4) weeks until MONSTER TREE???? How?? I don’t know. I was talking to a friend recently about the particularly weird labor pains this book went through (more on that in a future letter!), but man, I’ve ended up so proud of this fiery, weird little book. Preorder for less than the price of the sushi I’m obsessed with and get your future self a spooky season treat! And if you then find scratches on the back of your bedroom door, well…
Well. Beyond all the feels about a new book coming out, July was…a lot. I’ve never been a summer gal. More of a survive-the-summer gal, until the crisp and cozy comes back. July included a family trip which was great, and a 15 hour travel day home, which was not. (Blessings upon the Jamba Juice in B Terminal of the Las Vegas airport for getting me through).
I got some feedback on a new picture book, which is now off to my agent. I’m about 2/3 through with the rewrite of this chapter book. The adult novel still has its hooks deep, deep inside me and I can’t wait to get back to it and dive in hard core.
And like the rest of the country, I’ve fallen in love with the Clark Kent of the Paris Olympics.
What is the best book you’ve read or best movie you’ve seen this summer?
Onward!
The Idea-To-Plot Struggle
How do we go from an exciting but nebulous idea spark to a plot and structure that can support a full novel? This is one of my particular writing struggles, so I was thrilled to get such wonderful advice from such amazing authors!
Samantha M Clark, author of THE BOY, THE BOAT, AND THE BEAST, ARROW and the GEMSTONE DRAGONS books:
My books start with a situation, like a boy waking up alone on a beach with amnesia in THE BOY, THE BOAT, AND THE BEAST or a boy with one hand who lives in a tree for ARROW. From that tiny seed, I ask lots of questions, like what happened to the boy? How did he get on the beach? And why does the boy live in a tree? Slowly the character and world start to fill in, then I go to my plot lists and see which one will help me most for this story. For BEAST, I just used the 7-Point Story Structure. For ARROW, I needed more help and got that with Save the Cat. No matter which structure tool I use, I keep it loose and only use it as a reference while I draft, so that I can honor any changes the story demands.
Jess Rinker, author of Monolith, The Hike to Home and The Dare Sisters 1&2:
My ideas all come to me in different ways, but the way I solve the plot monster is generally the same. I think about how I want my character to grow and change within that idea/concept and build the plot out from there in ways that will help the character achieve that growth. For example, Monolith began with a “what if” question of “What if a boy (August) found a monolith in a cornfield?” Of course that problem has to be built up a bit, so I added “And his brother goes missing the same day and August thinks the two events are linked by aliens.” I knew August would go from embracing all kinds of wild theories and answers to avoid the likely answer that his brother was never coming back, and through the story he’d learn to embrace the hard truth of that. The plot does the work of growing your characters. (PS: his brother is okay) :)
Carol Lynch Williams, author of The Chosen One, Waiting, If I Forget You Remember, etc:
I'm not much of a plot person. My ideas almost always start with a line, or a thought, but mostly an emotion. Of course, there's a character. That person who speaks that first line, thinks that first thought, feels that first wave of happiness or grief. And it is she I will follow. Into a polygamist compound, after a dead grandfather, searching for a mother's love. While there's something the character is reaching for, I walk behind her on the path she's taken, pushing her (as hard as I can) from behind toward the climax. There's a job to do, of course. Keep this character from getting what she wants, making sure she's stretched enough to participate in the climax, developing her into a real person.. For me, writing a book is about emotion but there is no story without plot (dang it!). And plot offers growth, depending how the character chooses to act.
Arianne Costner, author of MY LIFE AS A POTATO, CONFESSIONS OF A CLASS CLOWN:
Plotting is my FAVORITE part of the process--yes, really! It’s like putting together a giant puzzle. Sometimes it makes me want to bash my head against a wall, but when you find that right piece that fits together, there’s not a more exciting feeling. I love starting with my idea spark and then trying to freewrite (aka word vomit) all my ideas about things I want to happen, places I want the characters to go, characters they could meet, etc. Then, I try to pin down what my main characters need to learn and how they need to grow. Then, I try frankenstein-ing those ideas to fit within a save-the-cat type beat sheet. I try to get as detailed as possible. Voila! The plotting is done... not. This plot will probably change about a billion more times. But you’ve gotta start somewhere!
Tesia Tsai, author of DEATHLY FATES (WINTER 2026):
My writing bible is The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, which focuses on character-driven plot. So, when it comes to putting together a plot, I spend a lot of time considering my characters first—what do they want, what is keeping them from their desires, what do they need to learn in order to grow as a person and be happy? Once I figure that out, I can brainstorm plot points and events that might happen for the character’s arc to move from point A to point B. I’ll usually write out a simple outline, then fill in the gaps as I draft. When I’ve got a first draft done, I can create a reverse outline and strengthen the plot from there, always tying it back to the main characters’ development.
Elisa Stone Leahy, author of Tethered to Other Stars and Mallory in Full Color:
Picture yourself standing in front of three doors. One is Character, one is Plot and one is Theme. All of them lead to the same room, the same Story, but from a slightly different direction. I’m writing my third book now and I’ve entered the story through a different door each time. With Tethered to Other Stars, I knew I wanted to write about the theme of immigration sanctuary, in a way that drew in all the layers and complications of different viewpoints and experiences. From there I built a character, Wendy, whose personal journey would take her from one perspective to another, with all the plot points along the way to help her get there. With Mallory in Full Color I had one plot point that I wanted to tell, about a girl who helps save a Drag Queen Storytime at her local library, and I had to build the right character, Mallory, who was exploring underlying themes of identity. My work-in-progress is a bittersweet, emotional story about the biggest boy in seventh grade, a sensitive, quiet kid who longs to find wholeness and home. No matter which door I pick at the start, the Character, Plot and Theme all have to support each other. I spend most of the planning stage weaving those three together into something that will hold the weight of Story.
Janet Fox, author of 12 books for young readers, including the forthcoming THE MYSTERY OF MYSTIC MOUNTAIN:
Every single book evolves through a different process, and I’ve learned to “go with the flow”. Some of my more complicated books (i.e., time travel in THE ARTIFACT HUNTERS) require lots of plot planning, which I do through Scrivener and the “Save the Cat” template. But my current WIP came very organically - I knew the beginning/middle/end and the main character’s internal and external arcs right away, so I’ve motored through the plot in record time. That has happened for me before only a couple of times, and the result has always been positive. But I’ve had equal success with those books that are more of a struggle to wrestle down. Bottom line: I think each book needs to come from a deep place of wanting inside me (the writer) and it comes into life in its own way. Kind of like each child, right? We are all unique and so is each book.
D.W. Gillespie, Author of GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT (Delacorte, 8/12/24):
One of the most exciting things about being a writer is how the process tends to change and evolve from book to book. Some of them seem to just bloom fully formed into your brain, and it’s all you can do to keep up with the overflow of ideas. Other times, you just get these tiny seeds. You know there’s something there, possibly even something amazing, but it’s going to take a lot of work to water them and slowly coax them out. GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT was more in the latter category. It all started with a single image…a town where monsters go trick or treating. When you get blessed with a concept that hooks your imagination like that, you turn into a detective asking yourself questions. Where is this town? Why are the monsters trick or treating? What’s really going on here? If you can come up with satisfying answers, it all starts snowballing, and before you know it, you got yourself a book.
Jess Hernandez, author of FIRST DAY OF UNICORN SCHOOL and the upcoming I WANT TO DANCE IN PANTS:
Like a lot of people, most of my books start with a sliver of an idea, usually based on something I saw in real life, that gets blended with other ideas over time. For UNICORN SCHOOL, it was a combination of a (nearly incoherent) bedtime story I told my kid about a unicorn at unicorn school (SETTING!) and an argument my kids were having over a cardboard paper towel tube (CONFLICT & CHARACTER!). For DANCE IN PANTS, I knew I wanted to write a book about gender expectations and Daddy/Daughter dances but couldn’t find a way in that wasn’t me raging about how stupid they were. But then I read a post on Tara Lazar’s blog about rhyming refrains and within a week, I WANT TO DANCE IN PANTS (which is a rhyming refrain as well as the title)was drafted.
With some of my longer books, however, things aren’t so smooth. A book I have out on sub started as an all-girl version of Sandlot, which is fundamentally a heist story. So I set out to plot a multiple pov middle grade. But I kept going back to one certain character. And rather than quirky high jinx, there was angst for days. I put aside my nearly completed nonfunctional draft and rewrote the entire thing, this time in first person and in verse. There’s also no heist. Sometimes, the story you’re meant to tell isn’t the story you’re plotting so it’s important to pay attention to what’s working and what isn’t.
Josh Allen, author of OUT TO GET YOU, ONLY IF YOU DARE, and ONCE THEY SEE YOU:
As a writer of short stories, my process almost always begins when I stumble on an image that resonates with me—a dumpy couch on the side of the road, two somber children walking home from school, the red blinking eye of a paper towel dispenser in the men’s bathroom. Then I take that image and tinker with it. I write it out, describing it over and over, fixating on it, really. And since I write horror, I keep asking myself as I work, “How can I make this image creepier? And creepier? And creepier?!” That’s usually when I start thinking about characters and structure. Who will stumble on this creepy image? Why that person? How will this encounter change them? And what significant plot points need to be in this story?
That’s when the outlining starts. My initial outlines are usually meant to include just the key plot points. But then, as I’m working on an outline, I’ll come up with a sentence I want to include somewhere in the story—usually in a specific scene. So I’ll pop that sentence into the outline. But then another sentence will pop into my head. And another. And another. So into the outline they go! Soon the outline isn’t an outline anymore. It’s a very messy draft with a bunch of gaping holes in it. So I try to fill those holes. Little by little, the story comes together. I’m like a kid, scooping small shovelfuls of sand into a bucket. But soon, the bucket’s full. The holes are all filled. I have a finished draft. But that, any writer will tell you, is when the real work begins. Because that’s when I have to find the weak spots and rewrite them. Over and over and over.
Damara Allen, author of THE SKELETON FLUTE (August 27, 2024):
I find myself getting bonked over the head with ideas quite often - usually it’s the character that speaks to me, but sometimes it’s a situation, a “what if” that I decide to explore. I’m very much a discovery writer and have found that plotting kills my creative process. So I start with the character and I just start writing to see where it takes me. I let the character tell me their story and I keep in mind things like what their wound/misbelief is, what their goal is, what their growth might look like over the course of the story, and what’s trying to stop them from achieving the goal. Knowing these things while I’m drafting helps me to draft a little cleaner without having to plot everything out ahead of time. At some point, I will usually stop and make an outline for the rest of the story, writing down what I know needs to happen before I get to the end. Once I have the story down on paper, I can go back in revisions and turn it into a fully realized plot. When I first got serious about writing I read all the craft books and tried to jam myself into the “plotter” box and realized that I couldn’t do that, that I didn’t have to do that. The best part of writing, for me, is that I don’t know what’s going to happen until it happens.
Laura Stegman, author of Summer of L.U.C.K., Ready or Not, and The Chambered Nautilus:
Summer of L.U.C.K., my middle grade debut, started with an idea about three kids struggling to communicate who learn to reclaim their voices during magical adventures. That was the easy part. As a pantser, my stories unfold as I go. While I love writing that way, it often means I’m unsure about what happens next. I had so much to figure out. Who are these kids? Why can't they communicate? Where do they meet? What kind of magical adventures? What do they want? What's stopping them? What's the conflict? Especially what's the conflict? When I got stuck, I panicked at first (I still do), worried that I’d lost my ability to write, which never turns out to be true. My solution, always, was to take some time to let my ideas percolate and flow then go back to writing. It worked every single time. Three books later, it still does.
PJ Gardner, author of the Horace & Bunwinkle series and The Great Zoodini:
I’m an idea machine. Mostly because I’m a curious person and I spend too much time on the internet. In fact, the internet is where I got the idea for both the original Horace & Bunwinkle and The Great Zoodini. The idea for H&B came from an article I read about a pig named Lulu who saved her human’s life. A woman living in a rural area had a heart attack and collapsed. Her dog stayed with her barking and howling for attention, but her pet pig went and laid in the road. The pig waited there until a car stopped and then forced the person back to the house. Once there they called 911 and the dog and pig’s human was taken to the hospital, where she was treated. All the articles about the incident focused on the pig’s heroics and made light of the dog. But as I thought about the situation it seemed to me that the dog and the pig had probably talked and decided it was best for one of them to stay and keep their human company while the other went and got help. The next question that came to my mind was: what else would a dog and pig work together on? Solving mysteries, obviously. (I’m a huge fan of mysteries.) And from there Horace & Bunwinkle was born. The book went through many incarnations but finally landed on the form you see today.
Allison K. Hymas, author of UNDER LOCKER AND KEY, THE EXPLORER'S CODE, and SECRETS OF STONE AND SEA:
So many of my ideas come from reacting to other people's stories. With UNDER LOCKER AND KEY, I was reading middle grade mysteries and wondered why the heroes are always detectives and the preteen thieves never get to tell their side of the story. From there, I started to explore what such a thief would be like, and what he would think of himself and what he does, and what kind of problems he might have, such as being hired for a bad job or trying to dodge a detective nemesis. On the other hand, SECRETS OF STONE AND SEA came about because I was making fun of how in The Mummy (I love the movie but this is silly), the highly dangerous cursed mummy is buried next to the key and spell needed to raise him. I asked myself, "what if the ancients who buried the monster did a thorough job of it but a couple of kids accidentally freed it anyway? Plot grew as I explored what it would take for kids to re-banish an ancient monster when they're given no guide, and what could go wrong along the way.
Thank you so much to all of these incredible authors for sharing their plot wisdom with us! Definitely check out all their fun websites and their amazing books!
What I’m Reading:
I’ll be honest, I’ve been in a slight reading slump lately, so I went back to a reread of one of my all-time classic favorites. I don’t know if there’s a literary character I love any better than Jane Eyre. “Do you think, because I am poor, obcure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?—You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you.” I mean come on! Rochester is such an absolute idiot and I adore him. So this is your reminder that if you haven’t read this one in a while, or *gasp* yet, you have something wonderful in store when you pick it up.
What I’m Watching: This month’s binge was a very unexpected and completely delightful recommendation from a friend. I don’t know how to explain the over-the-top weirdness of Hamish Macbeth, except to say that the vibes can best be described as if a Scottish Waking Ned Divine were directed by Alfred Hitchcock, so…there’s that. Plus, obviously, ROBERT CARLYLE’S FACE.
SOCIAL MEDIA (IN)SANITY: Just some dorky thoughts about what’s been helping me with social media creative and mental health lately.
What I’m Drawing: I’m a big dork about swag and have wanted to make my own stuff for a long time…and this month I finally did! Just a few things up in the shop now, but more snuzzles to come!
“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever.”
― E.B. White
Writing Opportunity: Check out this really, really cool opportunty with Charlesbridge to submit STEAM picture books and board books! Due Sep. 1!
Teacher or Librarian? I would love to do a free virtual Q&A with your class or book group! You can schedule a visit via my website. Let me know how I can support you! I’ve also got free classroom resources to accompany each book. You guys are rock stars!
Thanks for coming along! The Smorgasbord is a hand-kneaded, hand-shucked, reader supported publication. You can support by buying a delicious book or by becoming a paid subscriber. It seriously means the world, you shining star you.
-Sarah
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P.S. There’s a new Courses page up and running! Check out the classes available so far. These classes (and more coming) are an extra resource for paid subscribers. This newsletter is and always will be free, but the classes are one of the bonuses I’ve long wanted to provide for those with paid subscriptions. Whether you’re a paid subscriber or not, a serious thank you for being here!
What an awesome collection of advice! Yay for new book coming soon!
Oh my goodness, we recently watched a few episodes of Hamish Macbeth too. So strange and entertaining. Congrats on being so near your book launch, Sarah!