How to Plot a Novel: Proven Methods Compared

Every novelist eventually has to decide how much to settle before the first page. Some writers cannot begin until they know the ending. Others lose all interest the moment the story has been told in outline. Both approaches produce finished books, and both have tools that help.

This guide walks through the most widely used plotting methods, where they come from and what they are good and bad at. If you want the underlying principles first, start with What Is Plot?.

Plotter, pantser or somewhere between

Writers tend to sort themselves into two camps. Plotters (or outliners) plan the story in advance, often scene by scene. Pantsers, who write by the seat of their pants and are also called discovery writers, find the story as they draft. George R. R. Martin describes the same split as architects and gardeners: one draws the house before building it, the other plants a seed and sees what grows.

Most writers work somewhere in the middle. Many discovery writers know their starting point and a rough destination; many plotters abandon the outline once the characters come alive. The more useful question is not which camp you belong to but when you do your structural thinking: before the first draft or during revision. Even a pure discovery writer has to test the finished draft for structure.

Three-act structure

The idea that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end goes back to Aristotle’s Poetics. As a working tool, the three-act structure spread mainly through screenwriting, especially through Syd Field. It divides a story roughly into quarters: one, two and one.

1. Act one, setup: the world and characters are introduced, an inciting incident disrupts the status quo, and by the end of the act the protagonist commits to the conflict.
2. Act two, confrontation: the protagonist pursues the goal against mounting resistance, with a midpoint reversal that raises the stakes.
3. Act three, resolution: after a low point comes the decisive confrontation, followed by a new equilibrium.

The model’s strength is its simplicity. Its weakness is act two, which fills half the book and about which the model says very little. That is why many writers treat the midpoint as a turning point in its own right, splitting the long middle into two manageable halves.

The Hero’s Journey

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), the mythologist Joseph Campbell described a pattern he found across the myths of many cultures: a hero leaves the ordinary world, is tested in an unfamiliar one and returns transformed. Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood story analyst, adapted it for storytellers in The Writer’s Journey as a model of twelve stages, from the call to adventure and the meeting with the mentor to the return with the elixir.

The Hero’s Journey suits adventure, fantasy and any story in which a character sets out, literally or inwardly. Its archetypes, such as the mentor, the threshold guardian and the shapeshifter, are useful prompts. Followed stage by stage, though, it can produce a story that feels very familiar.

The Snowflake Method

The Snowflake Method was developed by Randy Ingermanson. It starts small and expands in steps, the way a snowflake fractal grows from a simple triangle. You summarise the novel in one sentence, then in one paragraph covering the major turning points. Next come short summaries for each main character, a longer synopsis, a list of every scene and finally the draft.

It works well for writers who enjoy thorough preparation and want to develop character and plot together. A useful side effect: the one-line pitch and the summary you will later need for a synopsis and query letter are produced along the way.

Save the Cat

Save the Cat! is a 2005 screenwriting book by Blake Snyder. At its core is a beat sheet of fifteen beats, each placed at an approximate point in the story: opening image, catalyst, fun and games, midpoint, all is lost, finale and more. The title refers to an early scene in which the hero does something kind so that the audience roots for them. Jessica Brody later adapted the approach for novelists in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel.

Save the Cat is very concrete, which makes it popular for genre fiction where readers expect a particular rhythm. Its fixed percentages can tempt you to build a story by stopwatch. Use them as a guide, not a rule.

Scene cards

The most hands-on method needs no theory. Each scene goes on an index card with a line or two on what happens, whose point of view it is told from and what has changed by the end. You lay the cards out, move them around, cut some and spot the gaps. Colour-coding helps separate subplots or viewpoint characters.

Scene cards suit plotters and discovery writers alike, the latter especially when reorganising a finished draft. They combine easily with any of the structures above. Try laying the cards out under the three acts: where only a few cards gather under one act, story is missing; where many cards look alike, the story is repeating itself.

The methods at a glance

Frequently asked questions

Which plotting method is best?

None is better in principle. What matters is whether it fits the way you work and the genre you write. Many authors combine methods, for instance three-act structure as the frame and scene cards for the detail.

Can I write a novel without an outline?

Yes, many novels are written that way. The structural work then happens in revision, where you test the finished draft for cause and effect, turning points and rising tension.

How detailed should an outline be?

Detailed enough that you know where the next scene is heading, and open enough that you still want to write it. For some writers that is one page; for others it is a full scene list.