**This is the second post in a series on my writing process, how I’ve analyzed and adjusted it over the last few years. More posts will follow.**
Okay, I’ve acknowledged I have a problem: I am not writing efficiently. I’m spending too much time stopping to work out something I could have done ahead of time, but I failed to do so because I’m too much of a pantser. I want to become more of a plotter. How do I do that?
The system I worked out I call PBRG for short, after the four steps of the process. This article will give a quick overview of the process and how it works.
What is PBRG?
PBRG are the four steps of the new process. they stand for:
- P – Planning / Plotting
- B – (World) Building
- R – Research
- G – Gaming
The process is simple enough. I start by planning and plotting out my story, working out the who, what, when, where, and why’s of the story. then I build, research, and game out anything I need to flesh out the plot.
The overall idea is that when I get to actually writing, I have everything I need to just pound out the words for a good first draft.
P – Planning or Plotting
Planning or Plotting means to work out the Who / What /When / Where /Why / How of the story.
I already start all my projects with planning and plotting, but it’s been very simple. I figure out the overall acts of the story, the important characters, and a few other bits I need to know.
In the new process, I want to plan or plot out as much as possible down to the scenes if I can. I want to know every location I have to prepare, character I have to name, and event I have to plan out. And then to sit down and prepare, name and plan out everything listed.
B – (World) Building
World Building means to create the world beyond the story.
World building is fun. I do world building almost every day, taking one of any number of fantasy and fictional worlds and working on part of it. I even sell world building services on Fiverr.
In this process, I mean to identify what I need to build before the story gets going. It could be the history of a region, the specifications of a space ship, or the type of artwork a race idealizes. The idea is to have everything ready and worked out so I don’t leave myself a ‘come back to this’ note.
R – Research
Research means to learn the knowledge I need but don’t have readily available.
This is one thing that tripped me up a lot in earlier drafts of stories. I’d stop mid-story to research trains or steamboats, or to research how far horses can move in certain conditions. There are plenty of notes in earlier drafts of me saying I’ll come back and fix you later (as I did with world building)
In this process, I mean to identify what i need to research, conduct the research, and have an answer prepared for writing.
G – Gaming
Gaming means to find complex portions of the story, and to work through them step-by-step to determine how they would work.
A game in this step is about consistency. It’s about making sure the units are all moving the same speed, and recording what conflicts happen where. It’s about identifying important choices various decisions makers had to make, and considering what they would do in that situation. I’ve done it a few times for the books I’ve written, but only after a first draft has seemed to go by too quickly.
In this process, I mean to work out the course of a complex activity ahead of time, and then write the story to conform to the process I worked out.
A Positive Test
Has this process been helpful? So far, yes.
I have a story project I call ‘Contrition’, a science fiction story set in the far future. It’s more of a secondary or even tertiary project, but it’s one I like to work on. For the first act, I applied this process.
- Planning / Plotting: I planned and plotted out the scenes. I identified what characters were needed and named them, preparing their personalities and impact on the story. I worked out place names.
- (World) Building: I build the geography, culture and economy of the planet the first act takes place on. How do the people respond to technology? How does the economy work?
- Research: I answered questions I knew I would need to ask. How hard it is for low-tech societies to build trade goods? How much space does a herd of cattle need? How fast to steamboats move?
- Gaming: Okay, this step didn’t come up with the first act, but I’m using a gaming process to work out how the decade in space before the story begins worked out. To make sure I’m consistent.
The result was; I wrote about 8,000 words in four days. I breezed through it. The first act, as prepared as I was, flew by. And then when I hit the first scene of act two, where I wasn’t prepared; boom. Like hitting a wall.
The process definitely has merrit.
Next Post
This was a quick overview of the PBRG Process, how I use it and how it’s worked so far. Next post, I will look at the Planning/Plotting step in detail, how I take an project from starting idea to scene breakdown.
Thanks for reading; I look forward to seeing you next blog post.
Cheers!
-Michael
