GPS
GPS-ing Our Plots
Last weekend I went to the beach with my kids. I’d never been there, but I looked it up on-line, plus I got an address to enter into my handy, dandy GPS.
Fortunately I had google-mapped it, because the GPS wanted me to go straight through DC (which EVERYONE knows you avoid if you can). I went around.
But on the way home, I was in no rush. The kids had a movie going, so I thought, why not? Let’s see where the GPS takes me.
Wow.
A path I NEVER would have taken in a million years. Still, it got me home and it only took 15 extra minutes.
When I started my now-complete novel, I had a plan. The basic chapters laid out. It was to be a short, funny jaunt through fairydom. Apparently my internal GPS had a different idea. All kinds of elements and subplots snuck in there, and the book went a different direction than I had planned.
Was that a bad thing? I don’t think so. Was my first plot-line terrible? I don’t think so either.
That’s what’s so great about writing. Our books can go so many different directions, and it’s all up to us.
How do you decide where to go with a book?