Mathiya Adams

The Hotdog Detective Mysteries

Plotting a New Story – Part 3

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In the previous post, I described how I use Post-Its to work out the details of the plot, focusing on what MacFarland is doing, what others are doing, and key events that might affect the plot. The number of details I include in this phase varies from book to book, but some general guidelines apply. Since the Hot Dog Detective Series typically has 70 chapters plus a Prologue and an Epilogue, I will have a minimum of seventy two Post-Its. I also have to have an average of another 70 Post-Its that follow the police, the antagonist, and others in the story. Sometimes it is more important to know what these secondary characters are doing, since mistakes or omissions in their plot structure can ruin my story. The last thing I want to do is have a story with a broken plot outline.

I do admit that I often overlook some things that go on during a crime investigation. For example, I don’t always show the role that the press and media play in an investigation. If I were writing a more realistic crime novel, I don’t think I could get away with this omission.

Nor do I include all the activities of the police department. For the sake of simplicity, I often focus on only a few of the individuals involved in solving a crime, whereas reality would recognize that there are literally dozens and dozens of people involved in even a simple homicide. Nor do I describe the complex interactions of many different jurisdictions and policing entities that often get involved in solving a crime.

I am writing a story that is designed to entertain, not describe in extreme detail the procedures of a police investigation.

But…getting back to plotting the story. I take the Post-Its and now determine which of these are scenes that will be included in the story. Since my stories are from MacFarland’s perspective, I only include Post-Its that describe what is happening to MacFarland. I now determine the time of day these events occur and put them into the Blake Snyder outline that I use. A copy of a portion of this outline is shown below.

The Blake Snyder plot structure includes the following seven beats:

  1. Setup
  2. Turning Point 1
  3. Act II Part 1 and Pinch Point 1
  4. Midpoint
  5. Act II Part 2 and Pinch Point 2
  6. Turning Point 2
  7. Act III

Setup – The Setup beat includes three components: the Opening Image (in which I put the Prologue of the story), Theme Stated, and Set-up. In the Theme Stated beat, I try to describe the general emotional and developmental issues that MacFarland is facing. In the Set-up beat, I lay out the basic murder conflict issues that MacFarland must deal with.

Turning Point 1 – The first Turning Point includes two sections: the Catalyst and the Debate. In the Catalyst, I have scenes that show how MacFarland gets incentivized to solve the mystery; in the Debate section, I try to have scenes that bring up some of the competing issues in solving the case. In this section, I often introduce other potential suspects, reasons to doubt the original assumptions MacFarland has made, and potential competing interests other characters might have in solving the crime.

Act II Part 1 and Pinch Point 1 – This portion of the Blake Snyder beat structure includes three sub-sections. Act II, in which there is a dramatic shift in the plot. The investigation becomes more serious for MacFarland or the forces arrayed against him start of emerge.  In the B-Story, MacFarland’s (or someone else’s) emotional attachments come into play, either helping MacFarland pursue his investigation or set up a roadblock to his easy resolution of the case. In the Fun and Games section, we get to play with the emotions of the main characters, setting them up for getting closer to each other, or encountering emotional barriers that thwart their “happily ever after” goals.

Midpoint – The Midpoint is just that…getting back to the goal of solving the crime, or  introduction of a false solution or a possible set-back.

Act II Part 2 and Pinch Point 2 – This section of the Blake Snyder beat structure is all about things getting worse. It consists of three sections: The Bad Guys Close In, All is Lost, and Black Moment. The scenes included in these three beats are all pretty obvious. The early successes MacFarland has had are thwarted as forces are arrayed against him.

Turning Point 2 – In the second Turning Point, the issues and individuals identified in the B-story combine with the main story to hint at a possible solution. This collection of scenes often represents the inflection point in the story.

Act III – Act III has two major beats: the Finale, in which MacFarland finally confronts the killer and solves the mystery; and the Final Image, in which all of the loose threads of the story are resolved. This section also includes the Epilogue, which is a fore-shadowing of what is happening in the next portion of the over-arching trilogy story.

I try to have five scenes for every beat or sub-beat of the Blake Snyder outline. Each scene will average 1,000 words, which makes the scene short enough for the average reader to race through.

Some authors will find my approach to writing a mystery story as too mechanistic. I am sure that there are other approaches that work just as well for others as this does for me. But with this approach, I am able to write a novel every 45 to 60 days.

Are they great novels? I don’t know. That’s for my readers to decide. Are they fun to read? Again, you have to ask fans of the Hot Dog Detective series.

For me, the most important question is, are they fun to write? My answer to that question is unequivocally, yes, they are! And that’s what keeps me going.

Plotting A New Story – Part 2

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In the previous blog, I described the six threads I try to weave into each story. I also stated that I use the Blake Snyder plot outline to structure my novel.

In this section, I will describe how I plot out the various chapters and scenes of a story. I will use the novel I am currently working on, The Unselfish Uncle.

The tools I use for this process are rather simple. A spiral notebook, Post-Its, and a pen. (Note: There is an excellent program called Writers Blocks that allows you to do this on your computer. I have used that program in the past, but there are times when I am working on plotting and I don’t have my computer with me.) Let me describe how I use these tools.

The notebook has dark parallel horizontal lines, just wide enough apart to fit a 1×1.5 in. Post-It. These bands represent a day.  Since the passage of time is very critical in my stories, I have to carefully keep track of just when events take place.

I start off with the day and date, e.g. “Fri, 8/31” On this date, two events happened in my previous novel, The Truculent Trannie. In Chapter 70, MacFarland and his associates have dinner at the Coopers house. On the same date, in the Epilogue, the Chinese stalk Jackie, kidnap her, and send a message to Robert. I want to know about these scenes so that when I start plotting the new novel, I know what to build on.

The Unselfish Uncle story starts on the following day. The Prologue sets up the premise of the murder. In this case, the family is going to meet for Saturday breakfast and they find a package on the porch. The package contains the head of Uncle Ned.

Note that on the left side of the page, under “Sat 9/1” is a Post-It that says “Opening Image.” This is the first structure in the Blake Snyder beat structure. The second beat is “Theme Stated  Ch 1-5.” This tells me that I need to introduce the theme of the story, along with major characters and situations, in the first five chapters. Chapter 1 had MacFarland racing to Las Vegas to find his brother. In Las Vegas, he meets Detective Leung. (I later changed Leung to Luong, after doing some research on traditional Vietnamese names).

Usually this kind of a notation is all I need to write a 1,000 word scene, which is the average I strive for in my Hot Dog Detective series. In addition to the scenes I include in my story, I have Post-Its that describe other events that are going on at the same time. For example, on Sunday, the Chinese release Jackie, who calls Cynthia Pierson and returns home. Since this is not something MacFarland knows about directly, it isn’t included in the scene, but reminds me of an event that he must learn about later in the story.

The advantage of using the Post-Its is that I can move scenes and information around, change dates, and see relationships between events and characters. Hey, this sounds a lot like how MacFarland uses his three-by-five note cards. I wonder if his method of data-management isn’t a little bit autobiographical?

In my next blog, I will describe how the information on the Post-Its is transferred to the Blake Snyder form that I use.

Writing a Mystery within an Over-arching Trilogy

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Mathiya Adams, October 18, 2015

One of the challenges I face when writing my Mark MacFarland Hot Dog Detective mysteries is wrapping two story lines together. In my first trilogy (Avid Angler, Busty Ballbreaker, and Crying Camper) this challenge was not at all difficult, since all three separate murder mysteries were all intertwined with the over-arching story.

However, when I got to my second trilogy (Desperate Druggie, Eager Evangelist, and Freaky Fan), the problem became more difficult, since my goal was to have the over-arching mystery totally independent of the three separate mysteries. As much as I am a plotter for my main mysteries, I confess with some degree of embarrassment to being more of a “pantser” in how I approached the second trilogy over-arching plot.

By the third trilogy, I had learned my lesson. I started preparing a Blake-Snyder plot outline the over-arching plot as well as one for each of the three story mysteries.

Then I discovered a second problem.

Time.

The time required for each separate mystery also had to align with the time requirements for the over-arching mystery. Just as each of my book mysteries had to have a logical time sequence for events to happen, so also did my over-arching story require a logical and believable time sequence.

It’s a lot easier to achieve this if you approach it as a pantser, I must say. I did find that if I put lots of action into the story, the smoke and flames of flamboyancy often covered up timing flaws, but unfortunately, my mysteries are not thrillers. The tone and nature of my books limit the number of high action scenes I have, so I can’t rely too much on smoke and flames.

I am forced to rely on planning.

The third issue is providing a proper interface between the over-arching story and the three book novels. My goal is to have three or four interaction points from the over-arching story in each of the three novels. That gives me nine to twelve scenes, minimum, to tell the over-arching story. If I use many more than that, I start to interfere with the pace and flow of my book’s main story line. I usually use sixty-plus scenes to tell my mystery, and if I use too many of them to handle the over-arching story, I fear my story will be structurally weakened.

It is possible I worry too much, but I would rather be safe than sorry. I think that is the curse of being a plotter.

The solution to all three problems, at least for me, is paying close attention to my Blake-Snyder outlines and extreme attention to a calender. I use the Blake-Snyder outlines to determine what events happen and the calendar to make sure they all happen within a reasonable span of time.

And finally, I try to make sure the interaction points don’t conflict with either the story plot line or the over-arching plot line, yet are still consistent with my calendar and my characters’ development.