6. ALPHA 2.1.

And we crossed into Alpha. Now that you have everything in place and you know who your characters are, what’s the story about, where and when it happens, and how it happens, you need to think a few steps ahead and start plotting.

A plot is a series of events that makes up the narrative action of a story.

Obviously, you can skip plotting and start writing directly. And see where the story takes you. There’s however a thing that happens to a lot of writers. When they reach the second act of their story they start to slow down and realize they don’t know how to get from that point to the end they envisioned. Things are getting really ugly when they don’t even know the ending. So, yeah, my story began here with this guy, we went together through a few adventures, but now what? Do I even need an ending?

I’m not saying that will happen to you. I’m saying that happens to some writers. One in two writers gets into that empty hole. It is called the belly of the story.

In that case, there are three things that can happen:

• The writer stops writing that story and hopes that in time they’ll find the solution
• The writer forces themselves to write and the story becomes cumbersome, and convoluted, or turns from novel-length to novella-length and doesn’t make much sense. The writer fails at delivering their brilliant idea.
• The writer discovers how to plot and continue writing their novel as it should be written.

There’s no right or wrong way of doing it. You may be the perfect plotless writer. Try it! Who knows. But if you feel you may end up into the belly of the beast, then maybe try a little bit of plotting.