Going Around in a Circle and Coming Out With a Book
By Denise Swanson
When I first started writing I tried many methods of plotting. I used outlines, notecards, whiteboards, and even just winging it—writing without a plan. Outlines were too constricting, notecards were too loose, and there isn’t a whiteboard big enough when I started to free associate.
Finally I read a book by Barbara Norville titled Writing the Modern Novel. In it she described a plotting device called a radial graph which I have now used to plot three mysteries, three romances, and a suspense thriller. For this article I’ll concentrate on plotting the mystery.
A radial graph starts with a small circle in the center of your paper. In that circle you write what the crime is. For example—Literary Critic, Beau Scarlett, is murdered.
Each of the elements of the crime are represented by an arm radiating from this circle. They are labeled:
Scene of the crime—2 AM Sunday morning. Knife to the heart. Victim’s mansion. Computer smashed and floppy disks burned.Suspects—Lee, spurned lover. Harriet, niece who inherits. Anne, editor whose career he ruined. Troy, writer he humiliated at awards dinner.Time element—where was everyone? Who has an alibi?Narrator (point of view)—third person limited from sleuth’s POV.Other characters—Leslie, Lee’s current lover. Tracy, Beau’s current lover. Alex, sleuth’s love interest. Housekeeper. Secretary.Sleuth—Lacy Mann, Troy’s agent. She must find the real killer before her star client is convicted.Criminal—Michael Bachman, rival critic. Beau has beaten him to the punch for years. He is pushed beyond endurance when Beau pans his first book.Victim—Literary Critic, Beau Scarlett
From each of these arms another set of arm radiates:
Scene of the crime; place, clues, weapon, body.Suspects; links to criminal, opportunity, links to victim, and motives.Time Element; suspects whereabouts, murder, day/weeks. Narrator; first person, third person or multiple persons.
Other Characters has only two options. Are they information passers or local color. Sleuth is also limited. Who is it and why are they investigating? Criminal is the same. Who is it and why did they do it? This goes for the Victim too. Who is it and why was he/she killed?
The Background line or what I think of as the setting is there to help with characters and local color not directly involved in the crime.
And the solution has three lines; how does the sleuth solve the crime, what clues did he see or miss, and wrapping up of all loose ends.
From the basic information I’ve entered in my radial graph I go to the next step, an old-fashioned outline. Many writers balk at an outline. I believe that is because they are picturing the old Roman Numeral monster from high school. Mine is set up by chapters and contains, at most, three or four lines explaining the action in that chapter. My outlines generally run from five to seven pages. I write the original in pencil and add changes in red ink, which reminds me to go back and fix what came before.
I now have one more tool. I need this for continuity because I’m writing a series and do not want to have to go back and read my last book to remember what color Aunt Jo’s car is. I use colored index cards—pink for my main characters, blue for my secondary characters, and yellow for those not coming back in my next book or walk-ons.
On these cards I list everything about a character that I put in a story—name, age, appearance, relatives, where they work, where they live, pets, etc. A lot of this information comes as I’m writing so the cards are never far from my computer.
Now I’m ready to write.
Denise Swanson has worked as a school psychologist for more than twenty years. She lives in Illinois with her husband Dave and their cool black cat Boomerang. For more information, visit her website, www.DeniseSwanson.com. Denise is a member of Windy City Romance Writers.