Plotting (that is, the work of deliberately creating a plot) is often presented to aspiring writers as an either/or thing.

Certainly, some writers feel that plotting a novel in advance is akin to putting a cage around their imagination or handcuffing their dreams to a wall. (These writers sometimes identify as ‘pantsers’ because they prefer to write ‘by the seat of their pants.’)

To others (‘plotters’) not planning or outlining feels like being thrown out of a plane without a parachute and told to figure out how to fly on the way down. 

But many writers (and I am one) are somewhere in the middle – ‘plantsers’ if you like.

For example, I usually begin writing from a single image or character without much idea about where the writing is heading. At some point I find myself attached enough to the idea/character to know I want this to become a novel and then I promptly begin to panic that I don’t know how to get from here to there. This is when I take a step back and do a bit of plotting. Then I write some more, sometimes following the plot outline and sometimes allowing the characters to take me in other directions. I do this until I feel lost or stuck, at which point I go back to my plot outline, re-assess and revise until I have a clear way forward. Then I write some more and on and on repeating this cycle until I’m done.

All this to say that the exercises in this module can be done at any point in your writing process. Indeed, you may find it useful to return to them multiple times as your novel grows. Plotting is not all or nothing and it’s not a one-time thing for any given novel, either. It’s a tool you get to use when and however often it feels useful to you.