Mapping Out a Story

Growing up, I learned how to write a story. Now, a story can have a good ending, but sometimes you can get away with a bad ending (Believe me, I've read a few books that ended badly.) Regardless if your story ends well or awful, the story has to have a beginning, middle, and end, right?

Learning about "plot" was one of the best things I've learned in my writing courses. The beginning of a story is known as exposition. The middle part of a story is considered rising action. And then the turning-point of a story (or a main character's "Aha!" moment, or what makes them change) is the climax. Then, the thing(s) that happen after the climax is falling action. And finally, the ending is usually known as resolution...

…unless you're bold enough to include a cliffhanger. : )

When writing Dolphin Princess, it was obvious that I needed to have a plan. I wasn't going to go on this epic journey without a map. So what I did was find a journal and went from there.
Once I had established my characters, then there was the task of putting them into a story. And here's what I call "mapping out a story," because you're telling the characters where to go, what to do, and when they should care about the situation. You're acting as director of the story.

What I did was put bullet points on ideas that I have for the story, and then do one of two things:
1. use an idea for the story, OR
2. strike it out
Now, if I was to use any bullet point, then I would either modify the idea, or keep it as is.
The idea was to get the protagonist (main character) to start their journey, to get them from Point A to Point B. In the case of Dolphin Princess, Silhouette has to go into the ocean to find out the truth about herself-- self-discovery, and confronting the villain responsible for throwing her into that limbo of not knowing her true self. So, the goal was to get Silhouette from Point A to Point B--How does she get to know who she is, and how does she plan to resolve her situation?

TO BUY MY BOOK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dolphin-princess-veronica-gonzalez/1129202183

Veronica Gonzalez