My Philosophy About Plot

The more I read in On Writing, I was fascinated by Stephen King's vision of writing - putting interesting characters into fascinating situations. Plot was something that evolves as you put the characters through your situations, not something that you spent hours and hours outlining what will happen in your story.

That was not something I ever expected to read. I always had the impression that writers did spend hours and hours of time sketching out events, plot twists, and shocking endings. They used sticky notes or 3x5 cards like old James Jesus Angleton at the CIA, but trying to find the perfect plot rather than the mole destroying American intelligence. Nowadays they can use programs like Scrivener to help map it out with electrons and magnetic storage rather than paper products.

I've got a copy of Scrivener myself. I've actually found some use for it, just as I've grown attached to Microsoft OneNote for keeping track of things.

When I do use those programs, however, it's usually more…