I tried a new approach to plotting today. I knew what I wanted my ending to be for HoC, so I started working out, in reverse, the steps that I would need to have take place for that ending to occur. It generated a lot of ideas, so I started a couple new text files.
One was a list of all the conflicts in the story, broken down into what person or thing one wants to do and what person or thing two wants that is contradictory. For each one, I worked out the ending I wanted and all the steps that needed to lead up to it. The other was a second version of my episode list, but instead of writing out scenes, I put in each stage for each conflict. So I have worked out what conflicts will be dealt with in which episodes, even if I don’t have a plot precisely. It turned out very cool.
I still have a lot of open space in the middle and I’m having a hard time tying things up. I have my big beginning, middle, and end points though, so I’ve got a solid goal to shoot for. And that may make it possible for me to leave some of that open space in place until I’ve written some, without having to worry about getting lost too badly. The biggest thing I need to do right now is work on the backgrounds for my supporting cast. I’ll be able to fill in some of their conflicts once I know them a bit better.