Plot iterations don’t read like a story. At least mine don’t. For instance in episode 2.1:
Talon won’t commit a crime. Finley levels that up by telling him about the Rosen Vortex. She wants to make sure all the plans are destroyed.
That will all become actual dialog in the next iteration. But for now, I’m telling myself the story. They may not be great stories. Plot is still my weak point as a writer. But they’re stories with events, actions, decisions laid out with a beginning, middle and end.
And they’re not that weak. They’re not great compared to someone who can plot but they’re pretty good in view of what I’ve written before. And it took me approximately 3 days (~18 hours spread over a few weekends) to produce 11,873 words.
The Helion Chronicles is set in a sci-fi world where humanity is terraforming the 110 planets of the solar system. Season 1, I really struggled to come up with scenarios that would happen in this futuristic world—what sort of catalysts would put my characters in motion? What obstacles would they face in this version of the world?
I spent a 12-hour layover in the Houston airport worldbuilding on my way to New Zealand. I spent what felt like weeks taking that infrastructure and trying to find the first story. I wrote the opening segment of Jupiter Run for Finley before I even knew where the story was going. Then spent time that same day talking to my parents to find a problem global enough to catch Cade’s attention.
And even though it worked, genetic manipulation of cattle felt lame. Until I got to episode 6 when Cade is answering to Captain Talon. Then it felt really good, but that’s another story.
Season 1 every single episode was a struggle to find events that would impact the characters and engage readers.
And now season 2… How did writing with an Agile First Draft methodology affect my process? I can say, even when I wrote halfway decent plots before, it’s never been so easy. Absolutely liberating. And fun!
To be fair, practice has to be factored in. These are plots 9 through 14 for me so I should naturally be getting at least a little better each time. But the focus of a plot iteration, freed from the constraints of any other writing elements, felt simple. And I felt more confident in what I’d written than I ever have before in regard to plot.
That was one of my fundamental arguments for the theory of an Agile First Draft. I think as humans we do everything better if we allow ourselves the freedom to simply do one thing at a time. Therefore, writing plot should be easier if all you focus on are the events of the story and the characters’ actions and choices.
Writing scene description and worldbuilding should be easier if that’s your only focus.
Writing dialog should be easier… you get where I’m going 😀
I expect for some people this might feel constricting. “I’m ONLY allowed to write plot?” But an Agile First Draft is about freedom rather than constriction. There is room to blur the lines some. I have lines of dialog scattered through my plot iterations because it’s what I needed to keep the story moving.
But I didn’t get STUCK trying to figure out dialog that didn’t flow naturally with what I was writing. And I had the freedom to not know all sorts of things.
In 2.1 I introduce a new character: Lexa. I know her name is Lexa. That came quickly and I didn’t get stuck figuring it out. I don’t know the name of the world she’s from. Or the mob boss that has tricked her into indentured servitude. Because names aren’t a part of plot. I didn’t spend any time worrying about those names or researching what cataclysmic climate failure would look like for episode 3.
I didn’t interrupt my plotting process to sort out details I don’t need yet. That’s the beauty of an agile methodology.
We’ll see where this agile methodology takes me next in the dialog iteration.
