Read your post on dialogue, not sure if anything I missed answers this so sorry if this is answered! I was wondering if you had any advice for discussing background and a robbery plan, how that could be tackled without a massive paragraph of dialogue. Not sure if this is an actual technique but would starting with a line of dialogue and having the paragraphs after be not-dialogue be a good way to go about that? Apologies in advance for “not-dialogue”. I minored in English. Words are hard today.
How to Write Characters Planning/An Explanation of an In-Story Plan
Do you know what's even harder than making a plan?
Having to write about your characters making a plan.
Explaining plans, especially in action/adventure stories that have a lot of moving parts involved, can be a one-way ticket to info-dumping central. I have never written a "planning" scene that I didn't struggle with horrifically, because it always seems like I'm shoving into the readers' faces why they have to do it this way and not another way.
Here are some tips on how I've managed to defeat the much-dreaded In-Story Plan.
1. Give the Planning Its Own Scene
Planning scenes take time. They have a lot of moving parts, require a lot of thinking and outlining to make sure there aren't any plot holes, and take a lot of energy for a writer to power through.
Putting this kind of scene at a huge point of tension or excitement will completely dampen the momentum of the story. Planning scenes are slow and direct, requiring intricate intent and understanding from both the writer and the reader--otherwise, everything that comes after the planning scene will fall apart. Planning scenes are better at building tension and anticipation rather than being the culmination of that tension and anticipation.
Of course, you can have your characters make a small plan in the middle of a fight, but big plans like heists, escapes, battle strategies, or other major character moves that require multiple pages and aren't just an exchange of dialogue and a paragraph or two should have its own section.
It is difficult to put a planning stage in the middle of something, so if you're having trouble figuring out where your planning scene should go, consider putting it at the start or end of a chapter or before/after a line break.
2. Explain Some Things Beforehand So You Don't Have to Cover Too Much
Plant some details surrounding the plan before the actual planning scene. This way, you don't have to worry about explaining each and every aspect of how it's going to go; even if you do have to reiterate some of these details, at least it won't be all new information for the readers.
These things could include:
1. Passing stand-out details about the places they will eventually infiltrate/rob/escape or the people they're going up against
Newspaper headline saying [Name of Corporation] just spent 9 million dollars on a new laser security system.
"Ugh, I hate walking by this place; it gives me the creeps! Rumor has it the statues come alive as an extra line of security."
Explain powers/influence enemy has
2. Magical Limitations
If your WIP includes magic, you might want to pre-explain all the reasons why they can't just use magic to solve the thing they want to do before the planning scene. Magical explanations are almost just as hard as plan explanations, and you don't want to have to burden yourself with combining the two.
There are more than just these two, but these were the ones I thought were the biggest!
3. Fight Back Info-Dumping by Balancing Description and Dialogue
How to Write Dialogue
How to Balance Description and Dialogue
If your planning scene is just one big chunk of text describing what they're gonna do, the readers will grow restless.
The key to writing a good planning scene is to give the characters props/staging, have interjections from other characters that may not be necessarily relevant to the planning, and include other aspects that make the scene important besides the planning.
Describe the space they're in before the start, pointing out interesting aspects.
Have the characters use a map, moving around pieces and pointing out specific areas.
Have some characters be more in the loop than others, interjecting their own input or asking questions.
Make the characters walk around, gesture, fidget, the whole nine yards! Break up that dialogue with visual cues the readers can latch onto to better envision the scene.
Have them joke around, maybe go off on some short tangents before quickly returning to the matter at hand.
Maybe the main character finds out one of their friends is a hacker, or into acrobatics! That contributes to both the furthering of the planning process and the building of that character!
You can also spice up that dialogue with some speech tags if it's feeling a bit stagnant! Here are some speech tags that could be useful in explaining a plan:
Asking
Asked
Demanded
Grated
Inquired
Insisted
Interrogated
Pried
Prompted
Quipped
Quizzed
Queried
Requested
Answering
Answered
Replied
Responded
Retorted
Explanations and Observations
Added
Advised
Affirmed
Alleged
Announced
Assumed
Began
Cautioned
Commented
Corrected
Deadpanned
Declared
Estimated
Explained
Guessed
Informed
Interrupted
Lectured
Mentioned
Noted
Observed
Pointed Out
Presumed
Proposed
Recommended
Remarked
Repeated
Revealed
Theorized
Told
Suggested
Supposed
Warned
Agreeing
Conceded
Confessed
Admitted
Affirmed
Agreed
Decided
Declared
Vowed
4. Use a Fresh Set of Eyes
The best way to make sure your planning scene doesn't come across as one big info-dump is to have your work be read by someone who's never laid eyes on it before.
You know your story better than anyone else. You know how the plan is supposed to go, and why they make some choices over other choices. A beta reader can be very, very important when it comes to not only picking out info-dumping, but also picking out possible plot holes.
The LAST thing you want is to have written a whole novel based around this plan, only to have a reader go "Well why didn't they just do [obvious option you didn't even think about]?"
Unfortunately...this has happened to me on multiple occasions with my current novel, which is why I've had to completely re-write it twice (these re-writes have improved the story for the better, of course, but have set me back years!)
5. Watch/Read Planning Scenes by Other Authors
Sometimes, watching or reading planning scenes can help you get a taste for the different rhythms and props used to keep it from being one big info-dump.
Of course, films and TV shows do have visuals and audio to keep watchers entertained in a way that us writers don't, but pay attention to the ways that the informative dialogue is broken up--with quips, with shots of different items, characters speaking up or moving around the room--and incorporate these narrative beats into your own storytelling!
Here are some planning scenes that you may want to look into to help spark your creativity!
Some of these are more intimate plans, some more elaborate, some involving more props/movement, and some involving more explanation!
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Inception (2010)
The Martian (2015)
Next Three Days (2010)
The Fellowship of the Ring(2001)
Game of Thrones 7x02 (2017)
Game of Thrones 8x02 (2019)- Planning beings at 3:07
Game of Thrones has a lot of good battle strategy planning scenes, and the Ocean's franchise specializes in heist planning scenes!
Feel free to reblog and suggest more!
Hope this helped, and happy writing!
