Comments on: Can You Diagram Your Way to Writing Success?

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 19 May 2009 04:43:44 +0000

Christina, I like that idea. Kind of like how you showed action/reaction pairs in your diagram?

By: Christina

Christina — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:02:22 +0000

I think I’m disappointed with my diagram because it doesn’t do anything an outline can’t do. I like the idea of marking it with the act structure. I wonder if then each act can be broken down into sequences, where the sequences are marked up for required elements like “inciting incident,” and then each paragraph broken down in stimulus/response pairs.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:49:15 +0000

Christina, do I get a cut of the millions for requesting it from you in a blog comment?

I think your plot diagram is great! It doesn’t suck. In fact, it looks like your plot points map very well to the “four acts” according to Diana Peterfreund (thanks for those links, Alexa!):

Act One: Ordinary world and inciting incident
Act Two: Complications leading to a crisis.
Act Three: Consequences of that crisis leading to a climax.
Act Four: Climax and resolution.

I think I’m going to take each one of my chapters and try to slot them into an “act” and see if one act is bloated (which I think might be one issue given the NaNoWriMo origins of this thing).

By: Kelly

Kelly — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:39:02 +0000

Jessica, thanks for sharing what you’ve done. I’m looking forward to your blog post on this topic!

By: Christina

Christina — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:15:11 +0000

I wish I could write a program to do it! Imagine the $$$!

I took a stab at a plot diagram. It sucks. Did I mention I’m an illiterate slob? Anyway, feel free to take a look and give me suggestions for take 2: http://www.riverfiction.com/forum_stuff/Oobleck1.png

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:23:43 +0000

I've done it a few different ways. Sometimes, I just look at plot from a character perspective, and as I read, write down how the character changes from the beginning of a chapter to the end. Or I decide whether the plot is turning for the better or for the worse at the end of each chapter, and make a little line graph for the whole book. Lately, my tactic is just to read and write down anything remarkable that I find in terms of writing or plot or whatever. Sorry for the barely decipherable response! That is something worth a blog post, I'd say. I'll add it to my Blog To Do List and send you a link when I do! Jessica’s last blog post..in my mailbox today

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 14 May 2009 04:02:39 +0000

Um, yeah, DUH on me with the Seuss title. Oops.

So I’m curious if you would feel the same way about this diagramming stuff if instead you wrote a program to analyze the structure of a piece of text (yeah, okay that might be too much) or to display a visual representation of a text that you mark up in the program.

I’ve heard of the Elements of Writing Fiction series, but I haven’t read any of them. So I just put that one on hold at the library. I’m also waiting for this title to come in: Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:54:04 +0000

Lorin, thank you for sharing those bubble diagram pictures. I can see how that would help with relationships especially. If you make one for your work, please share it! I’m really interested to hear how it works out.

By: Christina

Christina — Wed, 13 May 2009 04:42:55 +0000

The story I mentioned is a Dr. Seuss. (My son’s bedtime story last night). I suggested it because it has a ridiculously simple plot: the king decides he wants something new to come down from the sky, his magicians make oobleck (a green, sticky substance), and Bartholemew goes through a series of objectives, each met with failure, until the resolution at the end.

I probably don’t belong in this thread since I’m basically an illiterate slob, but as an engineer who’s worked on a visual programming language for 12 years, I have a strong interest in information visualization. I’ve even tried to read “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” by Edward R. Tufte (but I found it too ponderous to get through entirely).

Several years ago, I borrowed a book from a friend called “Elements of Writing Fiction – Scene & Structure” by Jack Bickham. I seem to recall that it broke structure down in a way that we might be able to use for diagramming. I liked a lot that I learned from the book, but didn’t agree with everything in it. However, it did feel very… not fun… to analyze structure in such excruciating detail. Then again, maybe it’s like diagramming sentences for structure, eh?

By: Lorin

Lorin — Wed, 13 May 2009 03:34:34 +0000

When I think of a diagram, I think of something quite different from diagramming a sentence, actually. As an architect, I learned how to diagram what needs to go into a building and how those bits need to relate to each other. The classic architect’s diagram is the bubble diagram. Here’s a good example from a landscape architect:
http://www.marksusser.com/images/concept/bubble_diagram_w.jpg and here’s one for a house: http://www.homedesigndatabase.com/Images/home-plan.gif

I can picture how I could use this to diagram my writing (especially characters and relationships) though I haven’t actually done it yet!

Lorin’s last blog post..Review: Zoë’s Tale