How to Plan the details for a Novel?

As writers, it can be overwhelming to manage the details of your book.

How to organize the details for a book?

The details can be of a variety such as character-oriented detail, past event, red herrings, parallels, twists, world-building information. But without proper planning of where to place them and understanding what the consequences are or the importance of these details, your book can look incomplete or half-baked.

To new writers, this can be a mammoth of a task and can take more time and would ultimately lead to the writer missing out on important details. If you ask me, it is a nightmare trying to perfect your book. We have all been there! But there is no one proper way to organize all the details that you’re planning to include in your book. But following a guide or organizer of your choice will help you for sure.

Before deciding what is the correct way to plan the details, we need to know the type of details planned beforehand by the majority of writers. The common details that are planned or thought about by writers include character details, premise details, past events, red herrings, plot twists, and parallels.

You can watch this video that simplifies the blog. Else continue reading.

Character details

It can be planned while making a character profile. Just remember you need to plan a clear character profile for your main characters and side characters.

How to make a character profile?- you ask.

A series of articles explaining the process of preparing a character profile is on the way!

In order to plan red herrings and details and other twists and turns you need to have a clear idea about your plot and how the story flow is going to be.

Detailing- What is detailing and how to do it properly?

For example, if one of your characters is going to save someone who is drowning then you should establish the fact that the character knows how to swim. This might look like a small detail but it is actually important. A person who doesn’t know how to swim or who is not brave will not be able to jump into the water out of nowhere to save someone else.

So, knowing what kind of person we are reading about, helps the reader what to expect when the scene actually unfolds. Detailing helps people to connect with the character and, helps them to anticipate what comes next.

When you’re writing a problem and start to unfold it, then reveal a solution at the end, the reader starts to anticipate what kind of solutions can be given for the problem you have established. This anticipation comes only when the reader has truly connected with your characters and knows the details about your characters. If the reader doesn’t know the details about the character that might actually help with the problem and you reveal it out of nowhere then the reader feels so disappointed and it is a cheap trick. You will look like a lazy writer, and this kind of writing won’t spark the interest of the reader. This can be followed in terms of all details to be added to the book.

Past Events- are an integral part of any story.

They give deeper insight into why something is happening in the story and its significance. Past events can also give us lots of clues about the characters and events, which will increase the reader’s anticipation.

Red Herrings

Before knowing the flow of your plot it is really hard to plan red herrings. When it comes to the plot, you don’t need to know each and every scene of the story. But you need to know the general flow of events that are going to happen so that you have an idea of where you need to place the red herrings. Red herrings are nothing but distracting the reader from the actual bad guy and making them suspect someone else. This is something that gives a twist feel when you reveal the actual bad guy. This is done mostly in murder mysteries and crime books.

Plot twist

This is something we plan when we plan the plot. But to make sure the reader really feels the twist is something we have to do on our own. For that, we need to make sure that the chapters before the twist are revealed convince the reader not to expect the twist coming ahead.