The Plot Point System
How Plotscribe works: every plot point can name a chapter, a plot line and an entity, and everything you plan connects through those three.
- Chapterwhere it happens
- 3 · What the Gulls Knew
- Plot linewhich thread it moves
- The missing brother
- Entitywho or what it’s about
- Maren Hale
On this page
One thing that happens
A plot point is a single thing that happens in your story, written as a short snippet: a title and a few lines of what occurs. It is the unit of planning in Plotscribe. You write every one yourself; nothing in Plotscribe makes plot points for you.
A plot point is never a chapter and never becomes one, and it adds no words to your manuscript. It is what the chapter is written from.
Three assignments
Every plot point can carry up to three assignments, and Plotscribe always shows them in this order:
- Chapter: where it happens in the book.
- Plot line: which thread of the story it moves, such as the main plot, a romance, a mystery or a character’s arc.
- Entity: who or what it is about, such as a character, a place or an object.
One set of plot points, three views
Plan’s view switch sorts the same plot points three ways. Nothing is copied between them: change a plot point in one view and the others show the change.
- Outline sorts by chapter, in manuscript order. Unfold a chapter to see the plot points it is written from.
- By plot line gives each plot line a lane across the chapters, so you can see a thread rise, go quiet and pay off.
- By entity gives each character or other entity a lane, which answers where someone is in the book.
How it connects to everything else
- Chapters: the chapter’s Chapter context lists its plot points under Chapter plan while you write. Several chapters can name the same plot point, such as a setup in one and its payoff in another.
- Plot lines: a line may say whose arc it is, which gives it that character’s color. By plot line flags a line that goes quiet for longer than its threshold, and a lane following a framework gives each chapter a section.
- Entities: an entity’s record lists the plot points about it under Connections, and each one opens on the Plan.
- Story time: Order by story time, in Plan’s More (⋯) menu, puts the chapters, and the plot points in them, in the order events happen rather than the order you tell them.
- Writing sessions: type @ in a session task to link it to a plot point you mean to write toward.
Change an assignment
On a Mac, Windows or Linux computer, drag a card to another chapter or lane, or select it and change Chapter, Plot line and Entity in the inspector.
On a phone or iPad, tap a plot point and choose its chapter, plot line or entity in its sheet.
Each move offers Undo. The ? beside the Plan’s actions (ⓘ on iPad) explains the system in the app.
Nothing disappears as a side effect
Deleting a chapter leaves its plot points untouched; they return to Unassigned plot points. Removing a plot line loses no words: its plot points keep everything and simply have no line. Changing a lane’s framework leaves every plot point where it was.