Nicholas Sparks Discovers the Pitfalls of Not Plotting

I’m not really a fan of his novels (seem a bit sappy for my taste), but I love some of the lines from this interview with Nicholas Sparks in The Daily Beast about Sparks starting a novel without much planning, and the dire problems that can ensue.

Such as: “I thought I had most of the story in my mind, and I got two thirds of the way through. It was only then that I realized I shouldn’t have started it at all.”

My favorite line from the interview:

I hit up strangers in the street for an ending.

Now after that “painful” experience, he swears by four personal rules:

1. I have to know how the characters meet.
2. I have to know what’s driving the story.
3. I have to understand the conflict,
4. [I have to know] how the story will end.

Here at the Plotting for Writers Blog, we tend to agree . . . that a little advance plotting goes a long way!

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