Plotting & Outlining – The Productive Indie Fiction Writer

Retconning Is Not a Free Pass: Why Indie Authors Can’t Afford to Rewrite the Past

January 9, 2026 / Plotting & Outlining, Story Concept / 4 minutes of reading / 2 Comments

Hollywood franchises might be able to reset their storylines and expect fans to go along with it—but indie authors don’t get that luxury. Readers trust books to remember what came before. When we break that trust, we lose more than just continuity—we lose our audience. Here’s why honoring your story’s past isn’t a limitation—it’s your greatest creative tool.

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The Way to Find Where Your Story Starts

September 6, 2024 / Openings, Pacing, Plotting & Outlining / 4 minutes of reading

The Way to Find Where Your Story Starts Stop Backing Off and Dive In! Let me paint you a familiar scene: You’re writing the first chapter of your novel, and the temptation to lay out all the things is overwhelming. You know, the backstory, the history, maybe a tour of the protagonist’s charming little town?

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Story Preparation for Pantsers

September 30, 2023 / Plotting & Outlining / 1 minute of reading

This is absolutely not a book I could have written! I am so thoroughly a plotter that even when I bought an expensive course on how to pants through a story, I still couldn’t do it. This, despite two serious attempts to work my way through the course material. Plotting is calcified into my bones,

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How to Brainstorm Your Fiction

September 23, 2022 / Getting Ideas, Plotting & Outlining, Story Concept, WRITING GENRE FICTION / 8 minutes of reading

How to Brainstorm Your Fiction 6 Steps, No Rules. Just unique, original stories. I attended the When Words Collide conference on the weekend, and was a speaker on a number of panels, including one on brainstorming. I was taken aback by the turnout for that panel, and the trend of the questions from the audience

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Two Questions That Transform Your Meh Fiction Idea To One Readers Rush To Buy

July 8, 2022 / Creativity, INDIE PUBLISHING, Plotting & Outlining / 8 minutes of reading

Most story ideas, even the coolest of them, are just ideas. Here’s an idea I grabbed off a random plot generator I found online: An action thriller set in New York in the 1980s about a dying cop with a secret, trying to do a heist. Now there’s some intriguing ideas in this one. More

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One Key To Keeping Your Genre Fiction Plots Tight and Your Reader Flipping Pages

July 3, 2022 / Plotting & Outlining, WRITING GENRE FICTION / 7 minutes of reading

One Key To Keeping Your Genre Fiction Plots Tight and Your Reader Flipping Pages Hack through Every Plotting Structure, including The Hero’s Journey You can go crazy trying to find and use the ideal plotting structure. Three act structure. Four act structure. Save the Cat. Story Physics. Story Grid. Even the venerable Hero’s Journey. Every guru says

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