Finding Your Words:

Plotting with Plottr & Writing with NaNoWriMo

November stands synonymous with the month of intense word-count goals because of NaNoWriMo’s powerful appeal for writers to set an insane goal of writing 50,000 words during the month. Thanksgiving, the turning of fall leaves, and the crisp refreshing days leading into winter, hold an appeal to immerse myself in the craft of writing since I began the practice in 2018.

1. NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month.

I can’t remember the exact year I first heard of this oddly titled phenomenon, but I used National Novel Writing Month of November, NaNoWriMo, for English homework during my children’s junior high school years. The challenge and the rewards of becoming a published author motivated my daughters to create pen names and encouraged them to write a novel that might have found a home on Create Space. Although dissuaded by a well-meaning relative, the platform would have been a marvelous showcase for their first novel. And in the very least this experience enriched their command of the English language and expanded their imagination.

So, in 2018 I embarked on the creation of my first novel after completing a short fiction piece of around 10,000 words the previous year. Sharing the story with my best friend in the world, I was motivated by her encouragement to keep writing. As an artist and creative individual, I pictured the rich characters and settings and designed a notebook and Pinterest board with an explosion of joy which I hadn’t felt since college days. Writing words with daily word count goals, attending conferences, learning from published writers and editors and others in the literary world, and embracing the pursuit as a business profession, propelled and fueled my creativity as much, if not more than, the artistic pursuits I had been engaged with my entire life. My engineer and architect training merged with my love for language, and blossomed.

I immediately started a website and created an online store. I investigated and studied other writers and creatives. I opened accounts with my new pen name on social media, adding new platforms over the next few years. Even the challenges of wrestling with Internet connectivity issues or the complexity of SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Google analytics, and other technical challenges of software design programs, would not slow me down. The balance between the artistic and organizational elements of writing a novel invigorated and lifted my pursuits to something of a puzzle. I love puzzles and brainstorming. And the courses I took to learn software like Procreate, Scrivener, Affinity Publisher, Plottr, (affiliate link), along with a myriad of Apple Apps fascinated my geeky side as much as the writing itself.

Let’s take a brief look at the app called Plottr.

Screenshot of a few timeline/plot lines in Plottr App. Here are a couple of images showing the interface and a link to Plottr for free.

2. Plottr App

One app stood out as a lighthouse for understanding how to structure the mammoth project of organizing four novels in a series with an overarching theme and helped me to track the location and timeline for the project. Plottr, without the ‘E,’ is a visual timeline and plot structure tool which allowed me to layout story structure and track elements such as clues, mystery threads, character arcs, and timelines, as well as the conventional acts, chapters, and scenes. I can literally move around scenes and insert clues along various timelines and watch my novel unfold.

Plottr (affiliate link for a free trial), also brings the ability to create a series timeline, construct character cards for the various novels within the series, setting cards with spaces for photographs and notes, and the capacity to connect the settings and characters and clues to a specific scene. The learning curve seems quite manageable, and the company has a marvelous community of users who create templates in various genres. They have nonfiction templates for organizing articles or books and the company actively engages with users on their FB group.

Screenshot of several templates and a series view for Book One.

If you’ve never tried Plottr, or never heard of it, the software is relatively new to the writing world. With all the programs and software available, one might be tempted to brush a new player into the dust. But this App rises above, doesn’t replace Scrivener or Pro-Writing Aid, and works with them to manage the story structure. You can layout the novel before you start writing, or as an analysis of your book during the project, or after completion to see if you’ve met all the conventional plot points of your work. Why not give it a spin?

3. ONE SHORT FICTION PIECE TURNED INTO A SERIES

That one novel turned into three, and then four in a series, that revealed an incredibly complex puzzle—an epic attempt to convey themes of forgiveness, anti-bullying, technology and identity theft issues, adoption, belonging, and reconciliation in Christ and with one another—needed a program like Plottr to help me sort out my plans.

5. BALANCING WORK AND RELATIONSHIPS

Life is too short to hold grudges or regret not spending quality time with those you love.

Even as I write this post, keenly aware that even the act of writing takes me away from time I could be spending with my husband, we have found an interesting balance by writing poetry and reading our work to each another. And using Plottr graphics to explain and demonstrate my ideas also helps my husband to understand what I am trying to communicate.

Click here to view an idea pin on Pinterest.

Plottr doesn’t rival Scrivener or other apps. It enhances those products. And in fact, there is an export feature which exports your timeline to Word or Scrivener. The number of updates and new features this company releases is quite impressive, in addition to their attentiveness to questions and suggestions for new features.

While this post may not find you before NaNoWriMo 2021 begins on November 1st, you can easily create a simple template to organize your next novel writing month project no matter which month you start. Let me know in the comments if you’ve tried Plottr or will participate in 2021 NaNoWriMo.

And for new and existing subscribers, I have an Excel spreadsheet to help you track your daily words which automatically calculates a cumulative total word count. Subscribe at the button below and download today! Download the spreadsheet in the subscriber library to help track your word count this November. Or subscribe if you haven’t already. (The password is in several of the past newsletters.)

Happy writing! Happy plottr-ing! And happy NaNoWriMoing!

MY PLATFORM and MY PRAYER:

I have a small website, and enjoy sharing software, ideas, apps, and ideas for your creative life. I trust God will guide and direct you in all your endeavors.

~ Patricia Tiffany Morris