Softly Softly

I have tea, coffee, instant chai latte (please help yourself -- I think it's disgusting) and de-caff tea and coffee and some rather wonderful thyme tea. Also chocolate. The local shop were selling four easter eggs for a pound. No wonder I'm overweight!

In one of the comments last week I touched on 'notecards' as a way of keeping track of characters (and confessed it was something I should do but didn't). What I do, though, is use a variety of noteboarding tools to help me keep track of the plot and subplots.

I regularly use Write It Now and have just started trying Text Block Writer and I've tried a few others in the past.

How about everyone else? Do you use paper? cards? software? or do you keep it all in your head?

Finding the plot.

I was just wondering, how do you approach plotting?

I think lack of adequate plotting was what ground me to a standstill with the DeadBeats novel, as although I knew what I wanted to happen I had little idea how to get there. It being the first novel I'd attempted I use my tried and tested short story strategy of working out your key points and then working out how they link up ~ easy enough over 2000 words, but not a sutainable strategy over 100,000 words.

So, with the new novel I'm determined to plot it out properly, as far as is possible. Unfortunately I don't quite know how to tackle this. Liz has recommended "Writing the Breakout Novel" (Donald Maass), and Zinnia has pointed me in the direction of "Plot And Structure"(James Scott Bell) , both of which I am grateful for and will be checking out. I've also been ovewhelmed by the many approaches to plotting identified in Wannabe a writer ~ maybe I'll attempt a thread chart this evening (or maybe I'll just watch the CSI season finale with wine and Kettle chips...)

So, does anyone have any fool-proof plotting strategies, any cautionary tales or any other plotting related advice or recommendations they can share, in order to to shed a little light into my dimly lit plotscape?