Book Planner

Order to plan

If you were looking for a step by step, here!

1. Brain dump:
Take all of your thoughts that you already have an idea on and write it down. You can organize this however you want(it will be easier to organize later if you do now). Make sure your organization makes sense to you. Things you should include in the brain dump are characters, setting, dialogue, plot, plot points, moments, magic systems, genre bases, tropes, cliches, and literally every thought you have for this story. You should keep this sheet/document near you through the whole process, because something might come to you in the middle of character development that you want to write down to remember. You should be editing this through the entire process of planning. On to step two!

2. Character development:
Before you do anything with the plot and setting information you just came up with in the brain dump section, you have to design your characters. You want a character driven story vs a plot driven story because it gives your book real meaning. If it didn't have characters it'd be a fake documentary with zero meaning or matter. You need developed characters before you plot. In creating your characters plot ideas will automatically come to you, such as backstory and problems they face. Write this down on your brain dump page, and catalogue it for later.  Filling out character profiles, finding faceclaims, and designing relations should all be done during this process. Once you're happy with the base for the characters you have deeply developed, time for step three!

3. Plot brainstorm:
Here is where you add more to your brain dump. In addition to writing down more plot points and ideas, this step is organizing all of the work you have already done. You may think that if you already organize in step one that you can skip this step, but I strongly disagree. You have been adding to your brain dump for probably days, even weeks with added information. This all needs to be organized. While you were working on step two you probably came up with more ideas for your characters live rather than the plot, which is what you should be building on during step three. This is kind of a halt and think, reorganize, and deep clean your notes to their final organized locations. I also like to transfer all of my paper notes onto an online document during this step. Moving on to step four!

4. Outline:
This is where you put all of your notes in order. I like to use a separate sheet or document for this step, so I can keep my already organized notes as well as my outline. Play around with the order of plot points and where the climax should go. Note when certain characters enter and quotations are said. Once your done you can complete step five!

5. Finishing touches:
The final step of finishing touches. This includes finalizing character profiles and backstories, setting ideas, plot points and the order they come in. This is the final organization step for you to choose where you want everything to go.

Congrats! You did it! Here is a complete plan for your next novel!