I am blocked. I know the entire story line for each pov and medium and big events and how I will mix them. But I have problem in what order to put the small events that fill a chapter. I am good at plotting the big stuff, but not the small one, like those little scenes that creat an entire chapter. Can you give some advise on this? Like I have this random scene in my mind, and than I am like, 'so, what next, where does it fits even? And what event should follow after?'
Guide: Filling in the Story Between Known Events
It’s actually good that you know the entire story, including the medium and big events. That’s going to make figuring everything else out a little bit easier.
What usually helps me in a situation like this is to get a bird’s eye view of my story. You can do that a few different ways, but ultimately you’re looking to create a visual representation of your story timeline on a piece of paper, or a digital version if you prefer. You may want to do a mind map or other schematic, for example, or you can just do a basic visual timeline, which is what I generally do.
For a basic visual timeline, just draw out a horizontal line in the middle of your page to represent your story’s timeline from beginning to end. Now, plot all of the known events in order, from beginning to end. You don’t have to make this an actual timeline, as in putting in the dates and all of that. This is just a visual aid to help you see what your story looks like. Use a short label for each scene so that you’ll read it and immediately know what happens in that scene.
At this point, you need to figure out what else has to happen in your story. What I like to do here is to draw a peaked line between every two known events, then consider what needs to happen to get from the one event to the next event. So, let’s say the event on the left is your protagonist practicing the big finale song with their choir, and the event on the right (later in the story) is the scene where they arrive at the dance competition in Washington D.C. What needs to happen between those two events? Do they need to do a fundraiser to get money for the trip? Do they need to win a regional competition before they make it to the national finals? Does there need to be a dramatic moment where it looks like their star soloist might not be able to go? Should there be a scene that takes place during flight or road trip to actually get to D.C.? These are all potential scenes that could go between those two events. Now, do the same thing for the next two events, which would be the arrival at the dance competition and making it through the quarter-finals.
By the time you get to the end of your last known scene/event, you should have a pretty good list of potential scenes to fill in the space between the bigger known scenes. :)
Good luck!
