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What’s a Plotter to do?

Meredith Bond
3 min readDec 8, 2024

I am a die-hard believer in plotting. For the way my mind works there is no other way to write. But what to do when plotting doesn’t work?

I’ve tried writing by the seat of my pants and always end up plotting a few scenes in advance, the major turning points of the story, and/or pre-writing before I actually get to the dialogue and, you know, the actual writing of the scene (pre-writing is writing out the goal, conflict, and turning point of a scene and a paragraph of what is to happen).

But I’ve suddenly come to a standstill in my plotting. One of my protagonists (I write romance, so I’ve got two) is about to hit his black moment. Everything he’s been taught by his father is going to be undermined by his father’s own actions. Everything this character believed about his parent was a lie. Essentially, the grown beneath his life is about to disappear. So, how is he going to react?

I’ve got no bloody idea!

I know the character. He’s a spy who believes very strongly in King and Country. He believes very strongly in responsibility — always taking on more — and helping people. But I don’t know how he will react to learning his father engaged in treasonous behavior and did so for his own personal gain.

I once read a quote (I forget who said it) about how easy it is to get your characters into a situation…

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Meredith Bond
Meredith Bond

Written by Meredith Bond

Award winning author, Meredith Bond's books straddle that beautiful line between historical romance and fantasy. Merry is also a writing coach and formatter.

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