The Fun of Plotting

by Linda O. Johnston

It's plotting time!

I'm currently finishing the editorial process for the fourth of my Barkery & Biscuits Mysteries for Midnight Ink.  Pick and Chews will be a May release.

I also have a deadline coming up in a few months for number five in the series.  No name yet.  I started plotting it a while ago and had to set it aside because of other writing commitments... but I'm back!

As always, it's fun to reunite with established characters and create new ones that'll be important to this new book.  That includes the dogs, of course. 

How to plot?  Well, I've established a general procedure over many years of writing that I call my plot skeleton.  It's somewhat based on screenplay plotting.  Yes, I'm a plotter, not a pantser.  In other words, I start by creating a plot that I turn into a loose synopsis and work from there.  I don't write by the seat of my pants as pantsers do--at least not much.  Sometimes my characters aren't completely willing to follow my established plot, and I tend to listen to them.

Every writer's procedure is different, of course, even though some might have similarities.  I've been at this for a while and so my subconscious, on whom I rely, tends to follow it even if I don't give it orders to do so.

So, subconscious of mine, plot on!