Quantum Storytelling

I’m (re)breaking one of my stories right now, and it’s both fun and challenging. For those that aren’t familiar, breaking the story is a phrase used to describe plotting your story into story beats, or plot points.

As I’ve been doing this, I’ve been using the reverse-cause-effect plotting method, starting with a big moment like an act, or stage/sequence break and working backwards from there.

As much as I love it, it’s been pretty intense. Not only am I trying to properly capture the plot elements, but the character conflicts that reside in those plot points as well. On top of that I have my “Must Have” fun list. These are the things I really want to see make their way into the story… think of them as pet ideas, hooks, or references. The method feels very much like plotting backwards with character conflicts as the source of plot points, instead of just ‘events’ — it’s all about the characters anyway. But the massive ingredient checklist is also taking its toll.

Note to self: Save some goodies for later stories. That’s one of the hardest things. I have so many ideas for different concepts and threads within my universe, it takes discipline to hold back and not reveal all in a single story. That implies I should be carefully sprinkling certain elements across a number of stories, which becomes another plotting concern to add to the big list of plotting concerns.

All in all, it’s fun. I’m certainly at a healthier place as a storyteller in terms of process from all the research I’ve done. I finally feel like I’ve got all the tools and development models to confidently construct my stories without too much fear of total rewrite.

Writing is rewriting, but the less rewriting you have to do the better. Set it and forget it, right?