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The Plot Planner is a visual plotting tool that many writers, myself included, find helpful in plotting fiction, memoirs, creative nonfiction, and screenplays. It serves as a great teaching tool for planning, pacing, keeping track of, testing, fixing, and refining a plot. Consider it a bridge between the invisible world of creativity and the visible world of the five senses.

This post elaborates on the benefits of using the Plot Planner, the formats it appears in, and how it relates to both plot and character development.

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The Benefits of Using a Plot Planner
A Plot Planner helps you visualize your story. Use it to do the following:

Place your ideas and sequence your scenes to greatest effect.
Experiment with changes in the storyline or presentation to evoke stronger reaction and interest from the reader.
Get a sense of how your story is paced.
Collaborate with others by showing them where you need help with your plot.


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The flow of a story emanates from dramatic action, character emotional development, and thematic significance. The Chinese call this flow in humans qi (pronounced “chi”). The qi directs and coordinates the flow of energies and is the mainstay of one’s life force. Qi cannot be touched or seen, but it is inherently present in all things.

A story is about things happening to people and the world around them, and is thus made up of energy. The energy of a story doesn’t remain flat, just as the Plot Planner line isn’t flat. A story grows in intensity, which is reflected in the line moving steadily higher as the stakes and the energy of the story also rise.

Characters move and make things happen. Tension builds. Each scene shows more conflict than the one that came before. Each defeat the character suffers is more intense and more costly, and creates incrementally higher degrees of difficulty to overcome, as reflected in the direction of the Plot Planner line.

Plotting Above and Below the Lines
In every great story, a protagonist pushes toward something (her goal), while forces both internal and external attempt to thwart her progress. This struggle between the protagonist and the antagonists sends the energy of your story soaring. The more powerful and formidable the antagonists, the greater the intensity, drama, and excitement in the scene.

Antagonists fall within one of six standard categories:

Another character: family, friends, co-workers, enemies, lovers
Nature: hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, natural law, physical disabilities
Society: religious institutions, government, customs, gangs
Machine: cars, robots, spaceships, motorcycles
God: spiritual beliefs
Protagonist: inner life, past mistakes, fears, flaws, doubts, moral choices, willpower
The main struggle of the story is between the protagonist, who wants something enough to take action against all odds, and the antagonist(s) or forces within and without the protagonist who work against her.

How does this relate to the Plot Planner? At its core, the Plot Planner is merely a line that separates scenes filled with conflict and excitement (which appear above the Plot Planner line) from those that are passive, filled with summary and backstory, or heavy with information (which appear below the Plot Planner line). More important, the Plot Planner line divides scenes into those where the energy, power, or control is with the antagonist, forcing the protagonist to react (above the Plot Planner line) and those where the protagonist controls the direction of the action or holds the power over the antagonist (below the Plot Planner line).

By placing ideas above or below the Plot Planner line, you create a visual map for analyzing critical story information, presentation flow, and weaknesses in your story’s overall sequence. You are also able to track how the energy of your story rises and falls.

Above the Line
Like the surface of the sea with its white caps and waves and swells, the external, gripping territory of the dramatic action, when your protagonist is out of control, fearful, lost, confused, or under the power of an antagonist, belongs above the line. All scenes that show complications, conflicts, tension, dilemmas, and suspense where the protagonist is forced away from her goals belong above the line.

In summary, scenes that show action where the power is somewhere other than with the protagonist go above the Plot Planner line. They can include the following:

tension
conflict
suspense
catastrophe
the unknown
betrayal
being chased or pursued
deception
vengeance
rebellion
persecution
rivalry
conspiracy
criminal action against the protagonist
suspicion
Scenes that show character emotional development involving the following also belong above the Plot Planner line:

loss
failure to cope
revenge
self-sacrifice
loss of control
anger
poor decision-making
grief
criminal action taken by the protagonist
fear
rebellion
greed
unhappiness
personal flaw
loss of power
Below the Line
Below the line is where the mystery lies. Scenes that belong below the line show the undertow: the internal, emotional territory of the protagonist. Much of the character emotional development is placed below the line, because character development often is revealed through character introspection. Any scenes that slow the energy of the story or in which the power shifts back to the protagonist belong below the line.

Scenes where the protagonist is proactive rather than reactive, or is deciding the best course of action to accomplish her goals and then taking it, belong below the Plot Planner line. These scenes can include the following:

a lull in conflict, tension, and suspense
a sharing of information with the reader by telling rather than showing
Scenes in which the protagonist is doing one of the following also belong below the Plot Planner line:

remaining calm
coping
solving problems
staying in control
planning
searching inward
contemplating