Plotting: Goal-Decision Cycle
So I used a processor called The Novel Factory for a while, and while it was more expensive than it was worth, I did learn one tip that I would reccomend any planners at least know if not use (pantsers, you do you)
What is the Goal-Decision Cycle and what’s so good about it?
It’s a style of planning scenes so that they all flow together and keep the tension building until the climax. It’s also useful to see where there’s gaps in the story, and see plotholes earlier. It’s also character-based, making it ideal for plotting stories that revolve around their characters rather than the other way around.
So how do I do it?
First brainstorm what you want the following plotpoints to be: inciting incident, point of no return, midpoint, breaking point (or dark moment), climax and resolution. Then brainstorm what you want to happen in between these plotpoints and make sure that they’re all in order. Your story will likely start with a goal scene and end with a decision scene. (Though this is not universal. If your character starts by reacting to something and slowly revealing what that thing, it could start with a reaction scene)
GOAL SCENES:
Your character will go into this scene with a goal. Something they want to achieve, for whatever motive or reason. Then something will get in the way. It will stand between your character and their goal. Finally, a disaster occurs; either your character experiences the consequences of failing to meet their goal, or they face the unforseen consequences of meeting their goal. There is often nuance to this, such as your character has been forced to choose between two bad options, and now they will try to minimize their losses, but it’s still a disaster. Or maybe they only completed their goal partly. After writing in what their goal, conflict, and disaster, write in the notes for the scene. This can range from nothing, to some combination of: side character motive, other stakes, things you need to foreshadow, other parts of the scene, or bits of dialogue and/or prose.
Example:
Goal: Wants to defeat and kill magical monster
Conflict: Magical monster is stronger than protag, with inpenetrable fur - protag only has a spear and a sword.
Disaster: By killing magical monster, protag releases a curse upon themself - if they don’t manage to lift it in seventeen days, they will die a painful death
Notes:
- king is watching - wants to see if this plan works and successfully removes protag from picture
- gets arm crushed in fight
- monster has a symbol on it’s head that’s the same as the sorcerer’s symbol in the next act
- “Come at me you little piece of --” The towering mass of magic and muscle turned around and bared it’s teeth. Protag’s voice turned small. “Oh shit.”
In this example, the goal and conflict are pretty straightforward (and a bit cliche, but whatever), but the disaster comes from a result of achieving the goal. As their goal in the beginning was to kill the monster, they likely didn’t believe that there would be a curse, and therefore it was an unforseen consequence.
REACTION SCENES:
After some consequence that happens as a result of trying to achieve their goal, your character’s going to have to do a little processing. Your character just went through some shit, so they’re going to have some feelings about that. After your character gets through the emotional reaction, then they can start going through their choices. Ideally neither of them are good. At a bare level, their choices are to do something or do nothing, but as your specific circumstance allows, there may be different or even more options. Then your character comes to a conclusion, which becomes their goal in the next scene. Sometimes these reactions scenes can cover broad expanses of time, or sometimes they’re pretty short. (These scenes are usually when you have bigger time gaps).
Example:
Reaction: Anger; protag was promised that nothing bad would happen if they won the fight and killed the monster
Choices: Yell at the people who made that promise - express anger (wastes time, will probably make the situation worse) OR figure out out how to lift the curse (people will probably try to trick them again, or think them gullible)
Decision: Yell at people - they’re not allowed to think they can insult protag’s honor and not get away with it.
Notes:
- Protag examined their hand. Swirling black streaks were slowly crawling up protag’s arm. A beautiful precursor to the death that would take them in a few short weeks.
- Sorcerer has his servants occupy protag as long as possible
- Anger is causing protag to miss details
In this example, protag makes a faster choice - they don’t have much time to spare. The decision they make is a showcase of their character. While it might be more logical to lift the curse, we can tell that the protag’s priorities are in a different order.
But what if I don’t want my story to have this much (goal or reaction)
While you always want to alternate between these two options, and you want to have an equal number of goal scenes to reaction scenes, that 1:1 ratio does not have to apply to your wordcount. Faster stories are going to have the bulk of the wordcount in the goal scenes, and slower, more reflective stories are going to have the bulk in your reaction scenes.
hope this helps!