Who, What, When, Where, How and Why? Making sense of it all.

So, the other day I was explaining some of the plot of my WIP to the folks at writers’ group.  This is the WIP I’ve been working on for seven years (on and off).  The one I was planning to finish this year.  The one I was hoping I would be able to send off to publishers very soon.  One more draft will do it, I thought.

But…It’s complicated. 

Now lots of novels have complicated plots.  Lots of books ask you to “suspend disbelief”, especially spec fic of which my WIP is one.  However, it’s important that any story adheres to its own internal logic.  It’s all very well for everything to make sense inside an author’s own head, but is that coming through on the page?

To sort out all the various strands of my plot, I mind mapped these questions:

Who? – This was an easy one to answer.  I wrote all the names of the main players, then linked all the secondary characters to them.  This gave me a clear idea of which characters have the greatest impact on the plot.

What? – For this question, I listed the main thing going on for the different groups of characters. Now I can see the main themes and conflicts at a glance.

When? – Although set in the present, my story dips into several different time periods (that’s why I love ghost stories), so here I listed who is present in which era.

Where? – The story is mostly set in Melbourne, but there are a few different places within Melbourne that the protagonist visits.  Here I can mind map the different “feel” of each place.

How? – Now we get more complicated.  Under “How?” I have listed cause and effect, which basically gives me a time line – this happened, because this happened, and that happened, because that happened, which leads me in a logical sequence of how seemingly unrelated things from history have impacted on the present day.  This is looking like a whole bunch of roots which come together to form the seed of the story.

Why? – I haven’t started this mind map yet, but I think this question boils down to motive.  Why do all the character’s do the things they do?  I know most of the motives already, but some are a little hazy.  I can’t wait to see what this mind map reveals.

The process of answering these questions helps me see what makes sense and where the manuscript requires more work to make it cohesive.

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
—George Orwell