This Is How To Transform Your Book-Writing Process

Image by author in Canva

Hello, there, fellow travellers! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you joining me on this journey. And as I reach each milestone, you’ll be able to say you had a hand in my getting there.

I’ve been astonished by the overwhelming support, encouragement and the “cheerleading” I’ve received since announcing my decision to finally give myself this opportunity after 20 years of detours off this path.

All the cheerleading in emails, texts etc. have lifted me and helped me believe in myself after a long period of challenges that left my confidence sagging and my creativity heaven knows where!

I used to write 10,000 words a day easily when working on a novel. After nearly 5 years of health challenges, I was only recently able to write a few hundred in a day, gradually working up to 1,000–3,000. Although I recognise that I’m improving, it’s hard not to feel discouraged and to question whether I can ever get back to the way I used to be.

And then… in comes my own personal cavalry! You! Telling me I can do it, saying you know I’ll be successful, excited to follow my journey!

As I write this, I’m in tears — with a big smile. I’m so deeply grateful for your encouragement. You’re helping me believe in myself again, and knowing that you want to stay updated on my journey every week will help me to keep going, especially when the challenges come — because they will come. And I’ve got you behind me, having faith in me and reminding me that I have all the tools I need to do this. Thank you — thank you! — for that incredibly beautiful gift! 🙏🏻💜

Speaking of Tools…

There are the tools I meant in the paragraph above, such as writing ability, imagination, creativity, drive, determination, desire, support, along with a wealth of experience and the help and guidance of the author group I’m in. And there are also tools of a more technical nature.

Before I dive in about those, I have to say I didn’t make anywhere near the progress I’d hoped last week. I wanted to finish adding “Canadianisms” and “Alberta bits” to Chapters 8–20, and I’d hoped to work in a change that’ll make a big surprise more effective. I was also hoping I might even begin writing past Chapter 20. None of that happened.

I did make progress in other ways, and they’ll help me in a huge way throughout what I trust will be a successful career as a novelist. Yay!

It was an odd week for a few reasons. I woke up Monday morning with some kind of nasty, sharp pain in my hip (pulled something while attempting some exercise on Sunday, I guess. A great case for not trying that again. Oops. No, Liberty. Wrong attitude). It has persisted all week, but gradually lessened in the past couple of days.

It hurt enough that I haven’t been able to do Tai Chi all week. And I had trouble sleeping. I couldn’t get comfortable, which had a knock-on effect in terms of poor concentration, being extra tired, and having headaches. Plus it was extremely uncomfortable to sit at my desk, or even on the couch with the laptop in a good position for writing. I was so frustrated!!

BUT… it was THE perfect time to do something I’ve been meaning to do for ages! And I trust it’s going to make it much easier to write all my novels. I bought a fabulous software program 2–1/2 years ago to help with plotting but it was in the midst of moving from England to Canada and then the leg injury and… well, I just wasn’t up to tackling it. The few times I’d popped in to have a look, it felt so daunting I slammed my laptop shut and considered running for some garlic or other ‘thing’ to ward off such evil.

Plotting Tool

Let me back up a bit. This program is called “Plottr” — yes, that’s spelled correctly. It’s designed to help authors plot and plan their books, as well as keep track of many details about the characters, the supporting cast, the timeline, the pacing, and all sorts of other goodies that go into writing a page-turning, splendiferous novel that your readers will love.

It’s even loaded with templates for how to plot many of the most common tropes and types of novels, including Hero’s Journey, Action Adventure, Children’s Books, Romantic Comedies, Cosy Mysteries — even Bromancing! — and more. You can also create your own templates, too.

Plottr is especially helpful when writing a series because it can share all relevant information, backstories, character info etc. with all the other books so you don’t have to re-enter it. Yay, ’cause I’m planning at least 12 novels for this series (might also do a spin-off series set in England…).

There are two kinds of writers: plotters and pantsers. Those who plot, and those who “write by the seat of their pants!” I am a serious pantser. Maybe it’s my super spontaneous, go-with-the-flow Pisces nature. Or maybe it was that growing up, no one ever showed me how to plan, set goals, how to achieve them, or how to create structure in any aspect of my life.

I just start and keep going, figuring it out along the way. That’s the way I’ve always written — and lived my life. The idea of structure or being restricted is horrible for me, and especially when it comes to writing. Plotting?? THAT much structure? EEKS!! NOOO!

With my creativity challenged these past few years, the cogs are pretty rusty. It’s been awfully slow going, because the pantsing thing isn’t working too well. I have to think through every scene and contemplate what should be happening in the next couple of chapters, and trying to “reverse engineer” events to figure out what needs to happen next. I have to consider how many scenes should be in the chapter, and design a cliffhanger ending for it (because every chapter needs one of those!).

This stuff used to fall out of my fingers while I wrote the story. I didn’t have to give it much thought; it just “happened.” Until now.

Last weekend, I was thinking that this week I’d take a stab at some plotting for the rest of my novel before writing more chapters. 😳 Wait. What? Was that actually in my brain? Did I really think that??! Uh, yep. I did. I really did. For a moment, I wondered if I was having a stroke. Or a seizure. Or maybe a nervous breakdown.

But then I realised it would give me more of a roadmap than the handful of “big events” that I already know about. If I could come up with a bit more detail, it’d be easier for my rusty cogs to fill in the bits between the plot points, but still leave room for the pantser to play!

Since I bought Plottr, I’ve been getting the newsletter, but I never look at it. No point; I haven’t been writing — or brave enough to use the software. Early this week, the newsletter arrived and weirdly, I felt compelled to open it. And yay!! A webinar on Plottr basics was scheduled for 2 hours later.

It was fantastic!! The instructor, Lisa Schulman, threw everything at us so it was a LOT to learn and remember. At least I saw what’s possible and the many ways in which using it will make this journey so much easier!

And yippee! I can still be the pantser I am at heart. Plottr will give me a way to create a loose but helpful outline of which events need to happen when. Along with a couple of other novel-planning videos I watched recently, I can see how having those basics will make it easier for me to pants my way from one point to the next. In my current “not quite my fully creative self” state, this is going to be a massively helpful tool.

Screenshot from Plottr.com webinar — a sample of the Three Little Pigs story

Above, Lisa using the Three Little Pigs story to demonstrate a tiny peek at some of the many features in Plottr. When you click on each box, it opens into a screen in which you can write loads of detail and make various selections, depending on the information — e.g. scene card, character description, timeline, research etc.

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So I’ve spent a fair bit of time this week, mucking about in Plottr, experimenting, walking through their demos, and familiarising myself with the features. It’s gonna be a huge learning curve but I’ll get there!

I was delighted to learn that they have loads of videos on their YouTube channel, too. I can already see how it’s going to help me and I’m excited to see it in action once I’ve had more time and practice with it.

More Outlining Tools

There are other tools out there that can help with outlining your story, such as Scrivener and Atticus. These two also provide word processing, so you can write your book in them. Plottr doesn’t have this, but it’s not necessary.

I’ve had some experience with Scrivener and loved it, as it offered both. I especially loved how easy it was to keep track of my characters and the kids’ birthdates, and the passing years. This helped me track their ages and the timeline because the three novels took place over the last 5 years of the 1950s. (Here’s the first one, Buried Secrets)

However, when it came to formatting for publishing, there were issues. It was about 8 years ago so I don’t remember what they were in particular. And I don’t know whether they’ve resolved the problems. You’d need to do some research to find out. If not for those formatting troubles, though, I’d have been happy to keep using it.

Atticus is owned by Dave Chesson, from Kindlepreneur. He’s taught millions of self-publishing authors how to sell books and has an excellent newsletter in which he shares loads of resources and essential information. (Side note: I would highly recommend signing up for it!). I’ve got Atticus, but it has a lot of bells and whistles. It was even more daunting than Plottr.

Although I bought it, I haven’t used it yet so I can’t speak from personal experience. I’ve read several accounts of it being “buggy” and also having some formatting issues. I’ve also read glowing reviews of it being the best. There are lots of comparison review sites out there, so you’d have to dive in and check for yourself about what might feel best for you. There are other tools available, too, but these are the only ones I’ve looked at.

Writing Software

Scrivener and Atticus can be used by both Mac and Windows. I have an iMac (desktop) and MacBook Air (laptop). The writing software I use is for Macs only and is called Vellum. I got it due to frustrations about Scrivener’s formatting issues. Vellum is more expensive and doesn’t have the outlining/plotting features or as many bells and whistles as Atticus or Scrivener, but it produces beautiful books. And it’s incredibly easy to use.

It keeps track of word count (with options on which counts you can see — chapter, manuscript total, or both) and offers various styles for how your pages will look, as do the others. Vellum has fewer options but there are more than enough to choose from for my purposes.

In the photo below (my current work in progress in Vellum), you can see the chapter and total word counts at the top, and the pop-up menu for the elements you can add. Simple, right?

Screenshot of author’s current work in Vellum

A peek at Vellum and my current novel. The window on the right shows how the book will look. The fancy scrolly thing and the capital “A” are specific to the style I’ve chosen, and there are many other options for these, plus fonts.

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Seriously, if you have a Mac, click on this link and scroll down the home page to see what’s possible. Gorgeous!

Summing Up

Although I was distracted this week by hip pain, poor sleep, and other things, it was still a productive week. Having taken the time to start learning Plottr is going to save me loads of headaches in the months and years ahead. I will remain mindful that there’s a fairly good learning curve. I can only do my best.

I worked on planning the rest of the novel. And I rather enjoyed it! I suppose because it feels like I’m creating a safety net, which, in my current state, is something of a relief.

Next week:

• finish plotting

• plan premise and main characters for Book 2 so I can introduce them in plotting current book

• rework an earlier section to facilitate a surprise I can’t share 🙈

• finish the Canadian/Albertan revisions Chapters 8–20.

I have to say — there’s been an unexpected gift in adding this element to this series. It has been grounding for me and I’m feeling more settled back here in Alberta, which is helping me let go of England. Also, before moving to England I never liked living here. But now, I’m developing a deeper appreciation for this magnificent part of Canada.

See you next week, and thank you so, so much again for cheering me on. It’s going to make a huge difference for me, and for this journey. I appreciate your time, your kindness and your support. Thank you! 💜🙏🏻