Have you lost the plot?

By Jenny Hilborne, author of mysteries and thrillers.

I have a chaotic mind and a tough time focusing on one thing at a time. I'm an erratic thinker with a short attention span. I often wonder how I got from one point in the thinking process to another. I'm a disorganized author.

When I sit down to write, my thoughts are scattered and my energy races off in several different directions, the result of which is a complex story with more than one plot line. These are the types of novels I mostly enjoy reading.

The challenge with a complicated story and multiple plot lines is the tendency to introduce the reader to a large cast; Stieg Larsson's series comes to mind. In Hide and Seek, I chopped out 14 characters during the editing process; enough to star in a novel of their own. I was still left with 41. I don't know what the optimum number of characters is. Each one in Hide and Seek had a purpose, and each earned their place in the story, but I would have preferred to write with a smaller cast.

A larger cast is more difficult to memorize, at least until the framework of the story is understood. This was part of the reason Dragon Tattoo took me several attempts before I stuck with it. If an author makes a reader do too much work, the reader might give up and move on to another book.

Another challenge with parallel plot lines is getting the threads to merge. In Madness and Murder, my two plot lines merged well and clues were dropped early on to show the reader how they would blend. I left the reader with questions, and the promise they would be answered. It's not always easy to get sub-plots to merge, as I've discovered with my new novel, Stone Cold, a current work in progress.

Stone Cold has a much smaller cast, but the sub-plot has grown legs of its own and taken over the main plot. I'm left wondering whether to cut the main plot and use it in another novel, or continue to try to blend them. Both plots have emerged as strong stories. As an author, I'm wondering what my readers might prefer. I love the complexity - do they? As the storyteller, I must choose how to tell the story, but a wrong choice could fail to draw the audience into the world I've created. I've agonized over it for weeks.

Reading authors such as Stieg Larsson can be work (and well worth it, once I got past the challenges he presented). I imagine writing his books and keeping track of the immense cast was not easy, but each character moved the story and he knew how to tell it. Authors have voices and stories in their heads, but who knew getting them on paper could be so difficult?

Authors: what traits of your personality make writing a challenge for you?

Readers: How complex do you like your mysteries and thrillers? Does a story with more than one main character and more than one plot line make it too difficult to follow the action?

A Long and Winding Road . . . Gets Me Lost

By Peg Brantley, Writer at Work, Stumbling Toward Publication


Technical difficulties.
Brain farts.
Frequent stops.
Blurred vision.

I need help.

There must be some fabulous, fool-proof (and I mean that literally) method to keep details straight. Something even those of us who are technically challenged can use.

My main characters are fine. We've been living together for so long I know their idiosyncrasies and habits well. But minor characters? Even in real life, I have trouble remembering people's names. Let alone some walk-on who insists on being referenced again ninety-seven pages later.

What about those loose threads? Those little bits of information I introduced to later feed into something bigger and um . . . where are they? what were they?

I have folders. They're pretty (I buy the printed ones at the office supply store—a different design for each manuscript). They're also closed unless it's a research item, or a character study.

I have a spiral notebook. Somewhere. And while it might have some information in it, I can't count on it to be thorough. Because I'm not even quite sure where it is. And whether or not I actually took the time to write down what I'm looking for at this moment.

Stickies? Where would I stick them? Eventually my computer screen would be covered, and then it really would be a hit and miss proposition.

And unless someone wants to come and sit down with me to teach me Excel, I'm not inclined to spend much time inside the big green "X" icon. I have enough trouble with the address list I keep in it somewhere. It frustrates me beyond belief.

There's probably something cool in Scrivener for this. If so, please tell me where it is and how to use it.

Is that what edits are for?

It could also be that I'm at that place with this manuscript where it's all suddenly become a muddle and I'm convinced it's a mess and hopeless and what in the world have I barfed up?

Seriously, smart and organized writers . . . how do you keep things straight?