Ep 203 When There's Too Much Plot
Pencils&Lipstick podcast ·
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Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome back to Pencils & Lipstick, I'm Kat Caldwell and it is October 23rd, 2023. So I am sorry about last week, my voice was not having it. I was a bit weak, I had a couple workshops that I had to teach, and so that, along a couple technical difficulties, we did not get an episode out last week. But we are back this week, and despite having to record this again, because again I am having technical difficulties, which, you know, I am the common denominator in those difficulties, so that is something to think about. We are still back and I am going to talk to you guys about making the decision of simplifying your plotline.
Before we go into that, if you love this show or if you have just stumbled upon it, I would love for you to subscribe if you want to get more tips and ideas and author interviews, everything about writing here. we mostly focus on indie writers, but we don't only focus on indie writers. We talk about the publishing field and anybody who is helping writers or have things for writers, we talk to them as well. So I'm going to have a couple authors coming up. I'm very excited for many of them. I will have to say I haven't talked to them yet, but I'm excited to talk to them. Um, we have a recurring person coming back to talk to us about what, um, they are doing. Emily Myers is gonna, has been on the show before, but she's gonna talk to us about what she has done since she's spoken to us. Uh, we're gonna have Caitlin Moss come in. She is a contemporary romance writer. We have Gabriela Pereira coming in to talk to us about her DIY MFA. She's been teaching and helping writers for, I think, a decade now. So you guys are going to love these interviews. Of course, we have a couple more in the works coming up. If you guys have any suggestions on who you would love to hear from, you can tweet me at PencilsLipstick. I would love to hear from you. You can also find me on Instagram. The podcast Instagram is Pencils and Lipstick, all spelled out. Or you can hit me up at katcaldwell .author on Instagram as well. So share this show out with anyone you know who is a writer or wants to be a writer. We are here to help writers. Okay. Today is not an interview show.
It's just me taking a good hard look at my books and you get to benefit from this. So we'll be putting myself in the hot seat. More or less. I've been through the hot seat. Let's say that. And now I'm going to tell you guys about the outcome of it. So as you know, I've been working on a duology and I'm bending all the rules. I'm not following anybody's conventional wisdom, because why would I do that? I am an individualist. After all, that is like my top Clifton strength. And so I I get all the input. I hear you. I hear you that I should not be doing this. All you people who do it correctly.
And then I say, but that's not how I'm doing it. So I'm writing a duology. It's going to come out February in a Kickstarter and it is family drama, but one is more heavily romance than the other. And that is where people have told me, you cannot do that. And I said, well, too bad. It's already done. I'm not changing it now. So as you know, I've been wanting to bring this duology out. I wanted to bring it out this fall. And it's the first one that the first book in the duology that has caused me a lot of angst and hard decision -making and it is the gut feeling that it's not what it should be and that gut feeling led me to actually get another book coach to come in and Give me a good hard look at it and look me in the eyes And of course what I really wanted her to say is this is great You know, just fix a few typos here and there. And that is not what she said. She said, it's a great story, but she said, my suggestion is you take out this entire plot point. Oh, an entire plot point. Interesting. That was, you know, my inner dialogue in my head. Ain't gonna happen, lady. And then I started thinking about it and I thought, I think she might be right.
Alright, so let's talk about plot and let's talk about characters because they are what drives story, right? And in fact, today is October 23rd. The Escape the Plot Forest Summit is still going on. If you are listening to this today, in the moment, you can still sign up for Escape the Plot Forest. Plot is really important. It is, along with character, it is what makes a story, right? We don't wanna just sit and watch a character do nothing. We also don't want to see a lot of things happen without a character arc, right? So they have to be together. And in fact, today on Escape the Plot Forest, I am talking about creating 3D characters.
So you know, when you hear Escape the Plot Forest Summit, it's a title in which we're talking about the roundedness of our books. But, plot is important, and the plot -making sense is important. Sorry, my nose itches. So when I took a good hard look at this, so the links will be in the show notes below for that summit. You can always, it's free to like, I say today because it's free to, for like 48 hours, every 48 hours all the talks are free. You can spend the money to get a VIP pass. I believe it's $87. There are 40 speakers So that comes out to what $2 and change per class and they're all worth it. I I think Especially if you are new to the indie world or new to writing or find yourself kind of in a rut a lot of them Are really inspirational There's been some great ones there. I Summit. It's Daniel David Wallace's Summit. Savannah Gilbo is there, and Gabriella Pereira is there, and Tracy Skuse is there. I am there. Lewis George said is there. There are tons of
people who are speaking and doing new talks that you probably haven't heard them do before. So that's my little plug there. So when I was looking at this book, and it's interesting because it's easier to tell people how to fix their books, right, than to take a good hard look at your own book and this is why I went to a book coach and I highly recommend if you have this gut feeling you might need to invest the time or the exchange or the money. A lot of times it's money but if you have a writing group you might have to exchange your time where you are you are delving deep into somebody else's work to give them really in -depth feedback or you might have to do an exchange on services, you so you do maybe their marketing and they look
at your book, you know, whatever that is. You can find developmental editors, you can find book coaches. Yes, it's either going to be time or money. But this is a big but. Even though at first my first reaction was like, I do not want to take out that entire plot point and why don't I because it's a lot of work you know it's work like let's just be honest it's work and I would rather be working on my historical romance series which I would love to get out next year as well but the more I thought of it the more I thought I was curious about whether she was right and so here is what I did I printed off the entire book yes I will plant a tree I I have planted two trees this year, so, you know, I planted out, I printed off 300 pages
and I started highlighting where that plot point happens. And this not only forced me to really see how many times it shows up, so it's not the main plot point, it is a secondary plot point and it is a plot point that comes in the next book and it gets wrapped up in the next book. And so, it is forcing me to see where it is. And it doesn't seem to really, it doesn't come into play until about a third into the book, which is interesting, right? I should know this, but you know, the book is all in my head, plus more. And so, I'm forced to see this plot point, and I'm forced to see where I would be taking it out and what I could be putting in its place if I were to take it out.
And I have to say that that process has allowed me to step out of being so close to the story and has convinced me that more or less 95 % of that plot point needs to go. So one of the problems with this plot point is because it's sort of not even secondary, It's, like, fourth on the plot point scale of this book. Um, it was really to tie in the characters into the second book and add sort of another, another, like, betrayal level to the twins' relationship. And what this book coach told me and what I have come to agree with her on is that it's not needed to show this betrayal level. What would be better is to deepen the betrayal, the feelings of betrayal between the twins without the plot point. And so here is the interesting thing. As writers, sometimes we add in a plot point, things happening to the character to, I think, subconsciously avoid digging deeper into the character relationships. Now, what's interesting about that is the added plot point calls for more words, and I think that in this day and age, like NaNoWriMo's coming up, and we sort of measure our accomplishment in the book by word count, and I have nothing wrong with that. I like to see how many words I have written. It keeps me motivated. I have a goal every day of how many words to write, which editing really messes up. I just don't like that. So I think word count for your daily goal setting and getting the book done is an excellent tool, but it's not always beneficial to the story if we are just getting a thousand words on the page if they aren't really needed. So a lot of places so far where I've
highlighted this plot point I can very easily continue the depth of the conversation between or whatever is happening in that scene between the two people in those scenes without this plot point. I can deepen the tension that's happening with them. I can deepen the misunderstandings or the the complications between them and deepen the main character and it will probably take away a lot of the word count quote unquote but I think it will make it a better story and so again I do think that we tend to to create these plot points thinking that it's going to add more conflict which does it does add more conflict but it doesn't always necessarily add more conflict in the way that we need it so we need to not always have outward conflict but we need to have inner conflict right and there's another point that I want to make in that there are times in which life really hits you with a lot of stuff I don't know if it's because we make certain decisions and they all come like to fruition with their consequences at the same time. But it is possible to have a point in life in which like you get hit with your mom has cancer and your kid's failing school and your spouse loses their job and and and and all these things
happen at once and that is a very chaotic time and most likely you are going to learn something huge in that moment, right? But here's the thing. As much as we want to have true -to -life stories, we cannot throw everything in the kitchen sink at our readers. And sometimes I think as writers, even though we are readers, we get this sort of disconnect in our readership and our writership, and we want to throw everything into our books, even though as readers, we want the simpler version, right? Because if you throw everything into a book it either becomes too confusing or too comical, like in the sense of there's no way that could happen. I'm moving on to another book. And neither one is good. Neither one will keep the reader happy and might even get the reader to put your book down. So it's interesting when I'm reading a book in which there are so many different lines happening just so many different things happening plus the author is bringing us backwards in time constantly to tell us about why these two are good friends and what has happened in the past and what they have experience in the past to sort of bond and cement their relationship. And while it could be interesting, half the time that I am reading that backstory all I want to do is to get back to the present time conflict and see how this main character is going to get through it. So remember that when we're coming to story as readers, what we're doing is seeing a situation and wanting to put ourselves into the shoes of the main character of that situation in order to sort of learn, more or less,
what to do were that situation to ever come to fruition in our lives. Now, you know, we love alien movies and sci -fi and space and all this stuff, and I'm not sure that that will ever happen in my life, but it sure makes for an entertaining hour and a half movie or, you know, 300 page novel. And despite the fact that I might not ever encounter aliens in my life, I will probably encounter strangers or strange things happening, and I'm still learning from the story, right? What I really want to know is what this character is doing. And the problem with constantly bombarding the reader with more than what they need is that they really just want to, they have come to the story to learn what that character is doing in the present moment. And so as writers, I think with our writer hats on, what we really desire for the reader to understand is everything about this character. Because if you're like me, you've lived with this character for two years now. You might be having lived with this character for 10 years. Maybe the seed of the idea came 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Maybe it's only
been a few weeks, but it doesn't matter. You know them so well and you want the reader to know everything about them. But, as a reader, you are smart enough to understand that through one conversation in the cafe of how they order each other's food and make jokes about something else about their wife or the way that they're sitting or whatever, you know within half a page that these two characters are bonded best friends. You know that because you've experienced that in your life because you've read other books with bonded best friends together. You've seen movies. You've seen your kids have best friends. You've seen your spouse or partners have best friends. You've had best friends. So you know it already and you don't need the background. Now, the backstory, those stories, those make great extras. And when we're in the mind space of thinking, this is extra and I just want to get to know this character that I love more, you're actually more receptive to reading that because you kind of have the choice of reading it, right? So I want us to remember as writers that our readers aren't, well, I can't think of a better were then dumb. They understand. They have those gut feelings. Their psychology is the
same as ours, right? And so we have to remember as writers that they understand these intricate human relationships without needing another plot point or more backstory. And so with my plot point, I've decided to put it all into the second book. That is where it was going to get resolved anyway. And so once I started thinking about that, I was like, oh, I think she's right. It is going to be work, but I think she's right. And it's going to allow me to deepen these sort of connections, as I said, with within the first book. And and going back to what I just said, I do believe that the reader. Will understand this this betrayal between brothers
without having to bring in another plot point. So, I want you guys to be careful with how much you're putting into your stories and how much you're possibly relying on your writer hat versus your reader hat. And it's hard. It's a balance. We have to go back and forth between these two beings. So one thing that I have found is, having off my book and taken highlighters in different colored pencils and pens and little tabs. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see my little post -it tabs that I'm holding up. It is allowing me to be more reader -ish in my editing than in my writing, and that is something that I have struggled with over the last year, is being more of a reader in my editing. And I knew that that was an issue, but I didn't quite know how to solve it. And so here I am highlighting and I'm making notes and I'm actually plotting out the scenes on Plotter as well, because what I want to see is how much space certain plot lines take up. And this is how I found out that this plot line doesn't really come in until the first third of the book. And then it's almost as if I've had to push it in certain areas. I wanted it to come up in this one part of the book. This is like going back to the beginning seeds
of this storyline. And so that scene is there. And what I think happens in our writer heads is because I want this scene there, I have to introduce the idea of it beforehand. And here, this is where I'm gonna do it. Now, to be fair to our writer heads, that's kind of how you have to do plot, right? Like, this has to happen on page 200 -ish, so I need three or four things to lead up to it. So fair enough, right? But when you are, when you're able to step back and say, okay, does this feel really put like a square peg into a round hole, right? Like, is it like I'm putting
it here because, especially in one point, I highlighted a page and a half and literally the conversation between the two people without that highlighted part flows perfectly fine if I just deleted it now. Which got me to thinking this, that I kind of forced it in my just subconscious writing head. Now, I don't think it would really mess up that much, you know, a reader that much to have this plot point there. But I want to make this decision on purpose. And if there is a chance of confusing a reader, I want to erase that chance. Right. I don't want to confuse a reader. And I don't want my reader to feel like, oh, my gosh, how many things can be happening to this kid I want.
So, this is me making a decision on purpose, and I talk about this a lot. I want you guys to make decisions on purpose. So, I would recommend at this point to print out your book if you're having any trouble like me. If you're having trouble just trying to edit it from a reader or a cold editor's point of view, to print it out. you will see a surprising number of typos, which is really frustrating, and typos in the sense of like wrong words that Word didn't check and ProWritingAid didn't find either.
You will see it differently. And if you take out different highlighters and you start highlighting different plot points, okay, this is this plot point, this is this plot point, and I would recommend you putting it into a system like Plotter or Plotter, or writing it down maybe on Post -its and start putting it, like sticking it on your wall, or buying a big roll of brown paper like a writer friend of mine does and writing it out all the way down, or getting a journal or a couple pieces of paper and writing it linearly if that works for you. And you're gonna start seeing
how many plot points dominate the story and how many of the plot points are just sort of sprinkled in. Now, it is up to you on whether those sprinkled in plot points are necessary or not. I do think that it is worth talking this out with somebody, with a book coach. It is ultimately your decision, though, so I did not have to take a good hard look at this. I did not have to take this book coach's suggestion at face value at all. You don't ever have to take anybody's opinion at face value. You don't have to do anything that they say, right? This is your book. But I think it's worth doing. And there are a couple things that people have commented on my book that I think, no, I'm probably not going to do that. As I said, um, you know, that I shouldn't do two point of views in the second book. And too bad. That's, that's what I'm doing. And if readers don't like it, it's okay. Um, but I want you to make these decisions on purpose. So I do think putting plotting out those scenes, which what plot point is happening in the scene? Where does the next that next plot point come in to the book how is it connected how is each plot point from scene to scene connected together and I think it will help you see if there is at any point that you might have subconsciously or
consciously forced that plot point in there so we don't want to confuse our readers. We want a plot and characters that are deep enough but also understandable. So I think that complex plot points, complex plots in our books can lead to a reader putting it down. And that is the last thing I ever want a reader to do. And one thing I think that contributes to us wanting to do this naturally and why I keep saying semi -subconsciously is that we are of the movie generation and in movies because it's a visual media you can add a lot of different you can go back and forth between characters and have different plot points and it's easier for the viewer to keep up because our all of our senses are sort of focus on this. That being said, if you take a good hard look at the majority of the movies that you love, they are probably quite simple in their plot points and probably even if it follows a lot of characters, it's still following the same theme, the underlying theme of the main plot, right? So I think we have to be careful when we haven't yet analyzed why well this movie goes here and here and here and here and here and it looks like it's a lot of plot points many times it might be different characters actually working through kind of the same plot theme so be careful with that but again this is your story it is all up to you it is your decision but i would recommend if you are having trouble to possibly look at
how complicated your plot is. Remember as well that we are coming, while we love certain plots and we come back over and over and over again to the plot, the reason you come back to certain stories with the same plot is because of the characters because lots of stories have the same plot line but they don't have the same characters. And so taking out that plot point as I am doing is going to give us space and words room to deepen the characters and have the reader fall in love more with those characters. Make sense? More or less? Okay. So I just want to always be open with you guys about my own struggles with writing. I know sometimes from afar it can look like, oh, that person is having such an easy time
because next year when I come out with two books in February, I'm sure some people will be like, oh my gosh, you just came out with two books. No, you will know that it was not easy and that it took quite a bit of work to get those two books together. I want that to be obvious to anybody who is wanting to pay attention. So yes, I am back at the editing. I will, I now have 600 pages printed out because I have both books printed out and I am doing the editing work one at a time. Actually, not at the same time. And I think that it is working a lot better. I think that my editing brain is able to kick in better. I am able to move my writing hat away and I'm able to be a better self -editor that way because that is what is required of us these days, right? We don't get that sort of one -on -one editor were expected to edit these stories almost to perfection before they were even sent out to another editor. So working with a developmental editor, spending, investing that time and money. Now, I'm never going to, you know, lose this lesson. I'm going to remember this lesson going forward. So I think that it was worth the time, worth the money. would encourage you to find someone who can look at your work if you are struggling with it and find a way to interchange either time or money or goods in that way. So yes this is my my thing my work for the next probably up until Thanksgiving. If you guys want to let me know what you are working on you can reach me on Twitter at Pencils Lipstick, on Instagram, all the links are below. I would love to hear about who you would like on the show and about what you are working on and again if you want to get the Escape the Plot Summit ticket I guess is what we're calling them you can click on the links below as well. Next week I will be back talking to you guys and then November and December are going to be packed full of authors and those who help authors. Pretty much lots of interviews. Alright, so until then, keep writing, guys. I will see you next week.