This Exciting Plot Writing course may seem to advocate a systematic approach to plot development, but it is not really so. There is no intention to suggest that a step-by-step process is the only way, or indeed the right way to develop plots. Nor is there any intention to assert that plot development must be completed, or even initiated, before the work of writing begins.

The seminal inspiration for a project may come in any number of different forms: a snapshot of a character journey, an intriguing phrase or sentence, a character trait, a momentous event, and so on. The writer must always have the freedom to work from that first idea towards a finished piece along whatever pathways s/he pleases.

For example, the work may begin with the writing of a few hundred words, to be followed by the sketching of a first draft plot and then by another piece of writing. Accordingly the draft may already be taking shape before the writer even begins to think (if s/he ever does) about issues such as character journeys and the setting of plot boundaries.

If the techniques discussed in this course do not add up to a systematic process, however, they certainly offer assistance with the important task of problem solving.

Problems commonly arise when intuitive writing processes lead the writer along paths that prove to be blocked or otherwise unsatisfying. For example,

• a writing project may begin with great enthusiasm, only to fizzle out when the writer loses sight of where the project is going;
• the writer may be satisfied with a finished piece, only to find that it is less favourably received by a professional reader.

In the face of difficulties such as these. the systematic processes outlined in this course come into their own.

• They enable the writer to gain new inspiration by asking searching questions of her/himself: Has this character changed sufficiently to maintain readers' interest?; Why did I choose to focus on the character's middle age when the momentous event of his life occurred in his late teens?; and so on.
• Considered together, these processes provide the writer with a detailed checklist for conducting a reasonably objective assessment of the qualities of a nearly-finished draft.