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Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Romance Writer’s Report (RWA publication) ©Jennifer Crump

 "Imagine - they tried to talk me into a cross-dressing hero..."

Connie Brockway (Bridal Favors, Dell, September 2002) says she can usually rely [the members of her plotting group to come up with something new and exciting. But then there are those times…

Plotting groups provide an intensive, rapid-fire exploration of plot. "You can throw an idea out to the group -whether for a scene or motivation or conflict -and watch them run with it or shoot it down,” says Brockway. In the case of the cross- dressing hero, it was actually Brockway who did the shooting.

Brockway is one of many published authors who belong to a plotting group.
Distinct from critique groups, a plotting group meets to hash out basic plot premises, conflicts, characters and occasionally, scenes. The idea, says Christina Dodd, (My Favorite Bride, Avon Books, September 2002) is to put together enough raw materials for a 20-page synopsis.

Plotting groups are all about experimentation, innovation, and bringing back a sense of fun and excitement to the novel-writing process. That sense of fun is sometimes difficult for published authors to conjure up, considering they face the dual, and often conflicting, demands of deadlines and fresh ideas.
Plotting groups may brainstorm new plot ideas or proof existing ones. The important questions are asked, like how and why. Holes are found and plugged, and hurdles are overcome. Work done in a plotting group can take the stress out of deadlines and plots that become stuck and provide both the writer and the book with new energy. Authors can plot their books months before they write it and can relax knowing they have that idea ready to go when they need it.

Plotting groups can be especially useful for continuities -series that are written by several authors with continuing elements. Heather MacAllister (Skirting the Issue, Harlequin Temptation, August 2002) recently went to the group needing a basic plot and premise for a book that will be part of Harlequin Temptation 's "Single in the City" series. The series revolved around a man-magnet skirt that attracted the wearer's true love. Six books had already been written about the skirt, including two by MacAllister. "They (the group) didn't let me down," she says. "I got what I needed and now I am looking forward to writing the book."
During plotting sessions, egos and owner- ship are, by necessity, left at the door. Because most of these plotting sessions take place when a book is barely an idea, authors don't have the same emotional attachment to their stories they might have further along in the process.

Alicia Rasley, romance author and writing coach extraordinaire (The Story Within, www.rasley.com) says, "you have to wrong if you're brainstorming -willing to discard ideas quickly and without regret."

The sessions flow fast and furious. MacAllister says it is like using the microwave rather than the crock pot. "I get instant feedback and don't go down as many dead ends," she says. “All of that creative energy feeds off itself and after plot- ting for a day, I'm drained yet exhilarated."

A hands-free process is critical. Many authors tape their sessions -double record them, in fact - to cover for any malfunctions. This allows participants to eschew note taking and to enjoy an informal, unhindered flow of ideas.
Frequent breaks are built into the sessions to rest everyone’s brain and to keep the gathering as much social event as work session. Much of the fun for MacAllister is the chatter in between plotting session. Some of the chatter usually ends up on the tape. “I could be set for life here,” she says, “Or I could also be unset if  you know what I mean.

"We have two rules," says Dodd. Rule #1- No one is allowed to say another pel son's concept is bad. We're not in this to crush anyone's ego, and you never know who's going to write the most unusual, fabulous book out of an idea one of us thought was stupid. Rule #2- When we're plotting and the author we're plotting for says, "I don't want to do that," we think of something else. It doesn't matter how spectacular the rest of us think an idea is. If the author doesn't like it, it's worthless.

The key to using plotting groups successfully is to have the confidence to say "this isn't what I want." Remember the poor cross-dressing hero? MacAllister says she has had to stop the discussion on occasion because she is stuck on a certain type of character or situation and the group can’t come up with anything that fits. According to Rasley, this is one of the bonuses of working with a plotting group. She argues that groups are generally better for plotting than critiquing drafts, because plotting puts the communal energy to better effect. "The diversity in a group actually sparks creativity when you’re plotting."
All work and no play can cause even the most serious writers to lose interest and the authors involved in these groups are no exception. When someone’s plot premise isn't working out, the group will often drop it for the moment and move on to some- thing else.

Food, says MacAllister, is very important. Adds Dodd, "We plan out our food. A veggie platter, chocolate, air-popped popcorn, then more chocolate. .." And whether the snacks are s'mores in Minnesota's Northwoods or Dodd's husband's home-baked oatmeal butterscotch cookies, all of the authors agree snacks are critical to the creative process.

We hear a lot about the business of writing, and it can be hard to reconcile the business with the creative process. Plotting groups can help an author do that. The camaraderie the plotting groups engender is part of their magic; the knowledge that someone else has hit the same brick wall, struggled with a dearth of ideas or a stalled plot. And of course, the knowledge that there is someone there who can help you through it.

Susan Mallery (Good Husband Material, Silhouette Special Edition, November 2002), Dodd and Gerayln Dawson (The Pink Magnolia Club, Pocket Books, August 2002) recently met for dinner in a nice little restaurant where Dawson asked them to hash out a plot she was considering.
"Okay," Dawson finally asked after a half- hour discussion, "should I kill him before he gets to shore or finish him off there?" Her companions carefully considered the problem.” Suddenly we realized the tables around us were very quiet and other diners were looking seriously disturbed," says Dodd.

Be careful where you plot, she advises. And where these authors choose to plot varies as widely as the personality of the authors themselves. Some authors prefer teleconferences while others like to work online. The members of Dodd's group are scattered across the country so she has plotted everywhere from Minnesota to her home in Texas.

Lauren Wittig (Devil of Kilmartin, love, September 2002) travels to Delaware's eastern shore for a plotting weekend with her long-time writing pal Pam Poulsen. The two have met in hotels and borrowed apartments for their plotting parties and then follow up frequently via e- mail.

While some like Whittig choose to plot with the same person, others like to vary their groups. Mallery says that throwing someone new into the mix means different approaches to the same stories. "Plus," she says, "I like to plot certain kinds of stories with certain kinds of writers. Some may be better at suspense or mainstream or category."

Regardless of who writers choose to plot with, it's imperative that each member of the group get what they are looking for from the session. Some might want a basic premise hashed out, others want scenes, and others might be stuck in a particular place. "Before we quit a book discussion, we always ask if that person has enough material or has met her goal for that session," says MacAllister.

Regency author Martha Kirkland (Miss Wilson's Reputation, Signet Regency, May 2002) says that many of the ideas the published-authors group of the Georgia Romance Writers comes up with aren't publishable, but they do start some lively discussions. "If nothing else," she says, "they get my creative juices flowing." Suzanne Sizemore (Too Wicked Too Marry, Avon, January 2002) goes on a yearly plotting retreat with Dodd, Brockway and several others. She says, "Even the dumbest comment from one person can spark a brilliant idea from someone else."

 For Wittig, plotting weekends take the terror out of plotting and allow her to tackle bigger stories than she would otherwise have felt capable of writing. When she and her plotting partner stall they'll use methods gleaned from conference workshops or from the book The Story Within Guidebook (by Alicia Rasley) as a guide. "One of the methods usually unsticks us,” she says.

While the idea is to rediscover the excitement of a fresh plot, it can also work the other way. Sometimes, says Brockway, after an idea has been heavily scrutinized by the group, it loses its cool. “And if I'm not eager and excited about a story after only a few hours of living with it, then it certainly isn't going to keep me interested for the eight-to-ten months it generally takes me to write a book."

Plotting groups don't work for everyone. Allison Lane (Kindred Spirits, Signet Regency, November 2002) says she has been asked to join several plotting groups but has declined. "1 am a seat-of-the-pants writer who knows little beyond heroine and hero back story and a vague idea of the first scene before I start writing." And she prefers it that way.

Gail Eastwood says her compulsive- ness about creating innovative, unusual plots would keep her from joining a plot group. She says, "someone might come up with a positively brilliant idea that I would never have thought of myself, one far bet- ter than anything I could come up with, my brain would reject the idea because it wasn't my own."

Heather MacAllister says this is the only drawback to plotting groups that she has encountered. Occasionally someone will become enamored of an idea and run with it, and there is too much input. "It might be a good story, but it's not my story," she says.

And the reverse happens when she has an idea that doesn't resonate with the group. "If go ahead and write the book, it's almost always a struggle and in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, but if they don't like it, it must not be good."
In the end it boils down to trust. Trust in the instincts of your fellow writers, but above all, trust in your own instincts as a writer. Apart from the relief from pressing deadlines, there is that aha! Moment when one of the participants knows she found something perfect. And those times when someone gets a totally new idea from someone else’s direction. Then, of course, there are the times when someone will say, “Are you going to write that story? Because if you don’t I will.”

There are, of course, very few original plots. "But a plot," says Sizemore, "is really a way of taking characters on a journey. A writer has at her disposal an infinite number of routes for taking that journey." The plotting group allows the author to explore all of those routes and choose the best one for her book.

And who knows where that cross-dressing hero might turn up?