#PlotMapping

[allnovellas]

How to Write a Story Outline: Mapping Your Narrative Journey

What is the secret to writing a well-structured story that keeps readers engaged from beginning to end? Could it be the creation of a detailed story outline? Let’s unravel the magic of story outlining, understand its benefits, and learn how to create one. The Importance of a Story Outline Writing a story without an outline is like embarking on a road trip without a map. You might eventually…

[comradeboyhalo]

badboyhalo pls drop the scrapped lore doc with your plotmap if you'd won the presidency

[tiesa-reale]

Children of Another Cause

The Return of the Runaway Princess

Ch 3

June 10th, 196

Tiesa

“How about we do?” she was saying.

“How about we don’t.”

“But how about we do?”

She was wearing him down, she could tell. They were trying to decide whether to stay in town that night. Tiesa was tired and didn’t want to walk more than she had to. Pen knew that they should avoid people as much as possible, especially with the close call in Tutium. She was starting to regret telling him about that.

“Let’s try this: How about we don’t get caught?”

She glared at him as they walked down the rough dirt road. “I hate it when you’re right. Why do you have to be right?” He just smiled and shook his head.

“So,” he said, “What do you miss about the palace?”

“We’ve only been gone for five days.”

“I know.”

“I miss Bellva,” she said eventually. “We’ve never really been this far apart. And she has to be worried sick. And I miss Perdita. And Lissa.” Lissa was Perdita’s niece who had come to live at the palace when she was very young. She was an energetic young girl, and she found great pleasure in getting on their nerves, but she could be the sweetest person on the planet if you let her. “What about you?”

“Me? I miss my parents. And Bellva, though she has a tendency to do more harm than good.” Tiesa nodded. This was true. “But I’ll tell you what I don’t miss. I don’t miss being shoved in some corner and told to shut up because we’re too young. I’d rather do something, you know? Prove them wrong.”

Tiesa agreed. They had had this conversation more than once, in fact. She remembered a time when, years ago, that hadn’t happened. She missed it sometimes. But that was why she kept going. To prove them wrong.

She was only fourteen at the time, and her parents were both dead. The was no monarch to rule, so the Directorate had taken over. The Directorate was made up of the former advisors to the crown. The issue with this was that half of the people there had personal agendas. And so did most of the local officials. No one could get anything done. In Tiesa’s mind, it was nightmare.

She had been invited to every Directorate meeting since she was ten - at her own request. She knew they wouldn’t invite her unless she asked. This meeting was held with the governor of Septena, the northernmost province-island. Perdita started the meeting off cordially, introducing the governor to everyone on the Directorate; Arlan Arcana, a plump, half-bald man who had been friends with Tiesa’s father; Teva Viren, a tall, demanding woman with blonde hair, who also happened to be Bellva’s mother; Cetti Verit, Pen’s father, a man with light brown skin and a perpetual smile; Vidia Verit, Cetti’s wife, a distracted woman with black hair and startling blue eyes; and Tiesa, of course.

Governor Enair wanted to raise taxes. It seemed that everyone did nowadays. He had majority approval from officials in Septena, and he only needed two of the Directorate’s votes to continue. The meeting ended quickly; Arlan and Teva voted in his favor, and that was the end of it. The interesting part was what happened after Enair left.

The moment the door closed, Cetti started shouting about how they needed to start caring about the people they were sworn to protect. Perdita joined him. Vidia tried to calm them both down, but to no avail. They were right and she knew it. After a few minutes, Arlan started screaming nonsense right back.

Tiesa stood up, joined Cetti and Perdita, and began pointing out the fact that nothing Arlan said made any sense.

“Get away, Tiesa,” Teva said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re only a child.” Tiesa glared and stood her ground. “You heard me. Off you go.” Tiesa looked to Perdita, who nodded sadly, a look that said I’ll sort this out, don’t worry. And Tiesa had left, in tears.

“We’re here,” Pen said, waking her from her reverie. He had stopped outside a large stone house with a sign declaring that it was a bed and breakfast. The inside was furnished generously, and there was a young couple sitting by the fireplace.

Tiesa waited as Pen asked if there were rooms for both of them. When the innkeeper led them away, Tiesa watched the couple stand and stop Tiesa. They were both young women; one had long brown hair and luminous green eyes. The other’s hair was white blonde and cut very short.

“We know it’s not your fault,” the first girl whispered.

“I don’t know why you’re here, but we know who you are. We don’t blame you for anything,” her partner added.

“Tiesa!” Pen called. “Come on!”

The second girl nodded, smiling. Tiesa was dumbfounded. They had recognised her, but they weren’t going to turn her in. In fact, they supported the cause.

“Tiesa?” he called again.

“Yes, I’m coming,” she replied, and followed him through the house, leaving the couple behind.

[soft-pink-wilfy]

I was working on some Dim Glow stuff in my brain while driving earlier (I've written like six chapters ahead at this point and mucked something up deviating a little from my written plotmap so I need to chew on that for a few days because what I did works better anyways) and instead of coming up with any meaningful solutions to the problem at hand, my brain instead decided to come up with AU that has no real ability for me to flesh out further than the concept.

So I present to you the concept of an AU where Martin and Tim get to the middle of the Distortion instead of Helen, so you end up with two unhinged boys Jon was uncomfortably close with before they got Spiraled. And they both just. Keep causing problems for literally everyone involved in the Institute. Still actively malicious, still "eating people" by luring them into the hallways and waiting for them to get lost, but now there's two of them and it's like the creepy twins from The Shining but with more neon colors and the faint sound of muzak in the distance.

[katanamasako]

Since i got it on the brain, fixed the link to the plotmap to the native realm under Beastiary. it’ll be the title of Cagailt, which is the name of the realm in question

EDIT: tumblr destroyed the size of the image making it unreadable. I’ll add a link in a moment leading to my DA page with a readable version

[pips-squeak]

if anything i think if they used a plotmap, i think the family tree would be ALOT less confusing... like some fanon relationships have been so ingrained in my head i forgot that they weren't canon. like tubbo being schlatt's son, and dream being puffy's son, (fanon) even though puffy only has a daughter michelle, and dream and schlatt made connor, so...

i got used to it so quickly i hadn't even noticed that wilbur and A FISH made fundy, A FOX. and... god. what. god, the relationships are SO wild. its fanon that ranboo and niki are siblings. <- thought it was canon for the longest time

true! however now that I think about it a reboot would be a good chance to turn some of those fan things canon considering how popular they are!!

[pastelgrungewrecker]

Fools and Heroes

((Fucka u @crimsbie for WOUNDING ME HOW COULD YOU anyway this is pretty much a sequel of some kind to my previous drabble about these two- commissions are killing me i needed a break from plotmaps))

He’s my Sun He makes me Shine Like D i a m o n d s

She wound salt-white locks around her fingers, swearing that they twitched in response even though he slept soundly- the rumble in his chest ominous and welcoming all at once.

She tugged, a half smile on her face, and he hummed in a sleepy response, the arm around her waist tightening slightly and his chest expanding with a deep inhale and slow exhale- his eyes never opened.

She felt warmth blossom in her chest, felt herself soften in a way she rarely allowed.

The edges of his eyes were damp.

A thick lock of his mane, call it what you will that’s what it was, still looped around her finger as she cupped his cheek and let her thumb brush away an already dried trail that hid in the red lines on his face.

One day he’d remember to scrub all the paint off before collapsing into bed. She couldn’t help the bitter smile on her face as she acknowledged the reasons he often forgot- for lack of a better term.

“Always prepared to leap to defense; some gallant hero in a novel no one remembers.”, she whispers.

“The fool in a court no one bothers to acknowledge anymore.”

She froze as he answers- as his eyes ease open and show tired stormcloud grey and the crystalline starlight of the beginnings of a fresh wave of tears. He turns his head away, she makes a sound of annoyance and tugs gently at the saltwhite lock around her finger before her hand returns to its position against his cheek.

“Jiraiya.”

Silence.

“...Love, for all you insist I don’t swallow my pain- why do you make yourself do it?”

“...Because.”

“Because why, Jiraiya.”

“...Because I am... I’m nothing like you, Tsunade.”, he says, softly, gently- the tone of someone long since resigned to a self-fulfilling prophecy, “I’m a failure- I’m a fool who trusts the wrong people and jumps in at the wrong moment; I proclaim myself the hero of the story only to find out I should have stayed the comic relief, I-”

Tsunade’s face fell with each word he whispered, like a confession, like a plea. All this time he carried these words next to his heart like mulberry thorns and hollybush barbs and still... Still he wiped her tears and pleaded for Orochimaru to come back to them.

Still he taught and laughed and wrote and joked and allowed himself to be the butt of every joke if it meant those around them would get a respite from the suffering so often in the air.

She gives a shake, letting his arm fall away from her waist as she sits up- her nightclothes loose and comfortable and almost like tucked back angel wings in the moonlight as she tugs at that snowshade lock of wild hair coiled carefully as new wool around her finger.

He grunts, clearly annoyed at being caught upset. She narrows her eyes, and tugs harder.

“I’ll yank it off, old toad.”

“Rude of you, slug queen.”

They kept their faces serious for only a moment before dissolving into tired chuckles as he followed her silent direction.

She hummed happily, guiding him to sit up so that she could ease behind him- nudge him forward, settle her legs and release his hair in favor of wrapping her arms around him and easing him back.

He settles against her, ear near her heartbeat and feeling her naturally warm hand smooth over his temple and stroke down over his hair.

“You don’t need to pretend around me, Jiraiya.”, she murmurs to him; feeling his hand move up to clutch carefully at her arm, “I don’t care what others have said, I stopped listening to them fifty years ago, clearly.”

A weak chuckle, throaty and shaking.

“There’s no... judge, or jury, here. Just me, love.”, she continues, “It’s just me.”

She feels him press against her plush chest, nuzzling towards her heartbeat even as she feels drops of heat from the newly freed tears of grief and insecurity.

“And I’ve already found you more than worthy of golden glory, in spades.”, her voice is a soft hum as the moonlight spills over rumpled sheets and their worn figures, “I’ve found you more than worthy of glory and praise and love and all those things you think these supposed failures have the right to deny you.”

He hiccups.

The sound is muffled and nearly unnoticable, but she sees the way long legs are drawn up and the way his good arm moves down to wrap tightly around her. 

She hums low in her throat, gently rocking him to and fro as he clung to her like a lifeline- years upon years of strength crumbling for the first time and she gritted her teeth in a surge of anger- at herself, at others, at some lost to time; for not seeing it sooner.

She tightened her embrace, leaned back slightly in a wordless demand for him to move closer, to curl tighter and bury his face against her smooth neck like she’d done to him so many times over so many decades.

She was fierce as she was lovely, steel wrapped within silk; gold in flake, mercury in the raw.

Beautiful and deadly for years upon years and tonight she left it at the door for the sake of a man she hadn’t realized she wanted to stay until he was almost forever gone.

“Sssssh, love...”, she murmured as he grieved silently.

“I’m here for you.”, she whispered, knowing those stormcloud eyes had stagnated into a mourning fog.

“Let the world turn without you tonight- I’ll keep you safe.”

His eyes drifted closed, damp and swollen, as he pressed against her so tight they almost blended together.

They fell back asleep, coiled together like mourning glory vines over an unmarked grave; her fingers tangled in a thick white mane and his head on her chest as the red lines beneath his eyes were dimmed and broken apart by dried tear tracks.

[elthos]

Lentelsville - Elthos Story Map by ElthosRPG

[descartesthinksnot]

finished outlining for the first book. just gonna finish the character sheets (because SOMEONE decided to introduce seven new characters in the last four chapters), then i’ll start plotmapping and shit for the second book

[ecotone99]

[RF] The Current of the Aspen

After the rain gave and having finished his coffee, he paid the bill and grabbed his flannel-lined jacket off the empty stool next to him, then he drove down the old camp road until he could go no further. He turned off the engine underneath where the welcome sign once hung strung between two pines. He stepped out into the road and around to the bed of the truck where he slid the first sapling to the edge and rested a moment to gather himself. Then he slid the burlap-wrapped root ball onto his knee and walked on up the logging path with it clutched to his chest.

At the top of the rise he set the first sapling against the Masey-Ferguson that he had not noticed until he was right next to the rusted mass swallowed whole by the wet native grass which had grown nearly as tall as the old man himself. The front bucket was flat on the ground and the tires were shiny from the rain from that morning and he wasn’t surprised after tapping his knuckles on the black tread that they had held their pressure.

He leaned in and ran a finger across the glass cover of the tractormeter. He adjusted his glasses and read 7834 hours of runtime. He pushed away the brush with a sleeve and gripped the steering wheel and the seatback and swung himself up into the driver’s seat.

He tested the gearbox and tested the pedals. Puttering his lips, he imitated the sound the engine and gears once made. Then he tried the wheel, turning it right and left but not without difficulty as the rope-thick grass underfoot prevented any real turn of the machine. It had been his grandpa’s tractor, and when everything sold when he was a boy it was left there at the crest of the hill to waste away together with the land upon which it once rode.

The old man rested a while against the seatback. He ran a sleeve over his brow and lit a cigarette and looked out across the barren wasteland running to the gray water beyond. Christ, he said. Then he took one more draw and stubbed the cigarette out on the shattered taillight. Where he sat a light breeze blew and in that breeze the quake of the young aspen was as beautiful as he had remembered.

Folded in his breastpocket was the paperwork for four acres that he had repurchased from the mill. Lot three-thirteen. It was his best guess as to where the old aspen grove once stood, having ran his leathery finger over the county plotmap to an area in the shape of a rhombus no larger than a cherry pit. He had closed his eyes and in his heart he knew it was there and then he said to the owner of the mill seated across from him: Three-thirteen. I will take three-thirteen.

He just sat there for a good while and there wasn’t much else to it. In the east thunderheads were forming but he did not think they would reach him. On that early fall wind rose the smell of wet wood and gasoline. He listened to the wind in the field below with one leg over the other and his arms folded across his chest and he looked out at the world the way it was. He took the yellow Bic lighter from his jacket pocket and lit another cigarette and watched a deer cross the field. He smoked slowly. He stubbed it out on the exact same ash mark on the taillight and then he folded his arms again. Sitting back in the tractor seat, he thought about his life. He wondered if there was a god out there somewhere and whether it would continue to elude him as it had done so all seventy-four years of his life up until that very moment. He shook his head and laughed and then he just stopped thinking about it. He plucked a blade of fescue and put it in his teeth. In the way off distance he could see smoke from a fire.

Well, he said. Bout time I get this done with. He got down from the tractor and squatted at the sapling and hugged the moist ball of dirt and roots to his chest and plodded down the path. He did this twelve times over and would do twelve more tomorrow. When he had finished, he walked back down to the truck and put on his shoulder seven crosses carved from ashwood and all tied together with rope. Then he swung the spade over his other shoulder and closed the gate with his knee and walked up the path one final time slumped over in the dying light of that gray and forgotten world.

submitted by /u/IAmFunPhil [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/37oxi3I

[motherofcats-world]

Working on my first #IndiReads novel :-) Re-drafting for the third time...who knew writing can be this tedious? :-P #writer #plotmapping #plotoutline #indireads #writingmadness

[tiesa-reale]

Progress Update

Hey people who still follow me! Idk why you're here, but I appreciate you! <3

I've just started rewriting my last Nanowrimo. Plotmapping is a beast (especially with 4 narrators) but I will prevail!

Wish Tiesa luck! She'll need it.