My Plotting Board

I’ve been hard at work writing the third book in the Welcome to Magnolia Bay Series. I started with a broad plot outline and wrote the first 1/4 of the book. (That’s how I get to know my characters.) Then, I took the plot through its paces in a plotting class taught by my good friend, Lisa Miller. Her Story Structure Safari class, taught through Lawson Writer’s Academy, is what turned me, a lifelong fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants writer (aka pantser) into a plotter. This image shows how I used Lisa’s four-zone plotting method to achieve the classic three-act story structure in Coming Home to Magnolia Bay, which is due out in the summer of 2022. I printed out the brainstorming I did in class, then used sticky-tabs to place each event where it fits into the story. The color-coding on the tabs shows which character’s arc is impacted by the event. Now I can see at a glance where I am in the writing process, and where I’m going. It’s an exciting journey!

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