The person who said that the sleepless nights working on a NaNoWriMo novel ended with November was dead wrong. I just thought I'd point that out.
I hate writing out plots, and my attempts never seems to work. It always seems to take the surprise out of writing. However I do enjoy plotting 'what-ifs'.
What is plotting 'what-ifs'?
It's very simple. You take a nice, clean sheet of paper, and draw a circle/square/whatever shape floats your boat. Then you write in that shape a major (or minor) event that happens. Mine might read: Z. sends Rogue and small band on mission. I then begin to draw lines away from it, attaching shapes to the end of the lines, and write in them what might happen, what would happen if character A did this and if he did that. And the lines continue to go off until my page starts looking like a multicolored maze. (I'm doing a wonderful job overusing my latest toy - a four colored pen that actually works)
And that's what 'what-ifs' are.
