The strange magic of non-plotting…. Guest Post by Karen Foxlee, Author of The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe

I’m in awe of plotters.  I love listening to them talk about chapters and scenes.  I love their plans.  Their maps.  The way they can see things like soaring eagles looking down on their story landscape. Okay, okay, so I’m also slightly jealous too. But I also know it’s not my thing.  As much as I sometimes wish it could be.  

My latest novel for children, The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe, started with two sentences that repeated in my head.

I had three names.  Lavender first, which is a pretty name but with too many letters to remember if you’re not much good at spelling.

 It wasn’t much to go on, a little clunky, but I was excited by those words.  I’m not a risktaker in real life but give me a few odd sentences from the writing gods and I’ll leap off a cliff into a story.  What were the other two names? I needed to know! And who owned this voice?  

Over the years I’ve learned the best way to be a non-plotter is to truly own the messiness of it all.  When I first started out, my stories often stalled because I constantly worried there was something wrong with me. Surely a real writer would know what they were writing about before they began. But annoyingly, the more I tried to know, the more my stories disappeared into sad puffs of smoke.  Now I say to myself, clearly and firmly, Don’t Panic, and jump into the unknown.  I stay close to the character or voice that appears. Sometimes I close my eyes and wait.  Young Lavender seemed, surprisingly, to be in a cramped galley on a tall ship. I was equally startled by the sudden knowledge that this ship was a cursed and magical pirate ship. But I was immediately captivated too! 

Non-plotting eleven novels has taught me not only to stay calm but also the important practice of starting small.  When I begin in the small moments and the tiny actions, the fragile unknown story has a chance of growing.  I stuck with Lavender in the ogress, Big Agatha’s, ship kitchen. I saw what Lavender saw, heard what she heard, and I got hopelessly lost in her thoughts.  I felt the pickling shelf she slept on and the warmth of Odine, the magical hen, in her arms. I spent months writing about that damp, dark galley and the “kitchen rat” children who worked in it.  I avoided thinking too far ahead, rather joyfully imagined the strange, charmed recipes the rats made. I spent so long below deck, that I too swayed when Lavender finally went up the ladder to the huge sea and sky.  

I’ve also learned that non-plotting takes longer and I must be prepared for that.  Non-plotting means writing in wrong directions and weeks back-pedalling, usually carrying the small gifts of new ideas. It means exploring backstory, most of which never makes it into the finished tale.  It is sometimes as the months drag on (and occasionally even years) that I long to be a plotter the most.  I frantically google How to Plot a Novel but always to no avail.  Like all my stories, Lavender grew slowly, her tale unravelled, the magic became organised, her friends became whole and their own arcs unspooled.  The story landscape solidified, as though it had always been waiting there for me.  

Lavender Wolfe is an epic adventure tale. A race against time. There are oceans to be crossed and curses to be broken.  There’s a ship captain with a bird wing and a boy trapped inside a shell. It’s a story about love and where we might find it, the magic inside us, if only we look for it.  I grew this story out of a sentence, and a small amount of hope, and I always feel that’s the part of non-plotting that feels almost magical itself.   For non-plotters who sometimes doubt their process my advice is – Don’t Panic!  Play with your story, write for the joy of it, don’t rush!  Stick with the small moments and the magic of your beautiful story will begin to emerge.  

~

Karen Foxlee is an Australian author who writes for both children and young adults. Her books include Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, A Most Magical Girl, Lenny’s Book of Everything, Dragon Skin, and The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe. Karen writes and lives in Queensland with her daughter, cats, and parrots.

Follow her at her website and her instagram: @karenfoxleeauthor 

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