Plot in General

I can't do real plots.

Possibly that's an exaggeration, but I have to wonder sometimes. I rely on fan fiction for worlds and characters, but that's not all. Brutal series? Hunger Games plot. The Rules? Ditto. I don't really plot. I just throw people together and make them kill each other. My possible +Anima fan fiction is just a retelling, and the only roleplays I can keep up are OC tournaments, which is a pretty rigid standard plot (though it can wander off on its own at times).

As far as making do with my own ideas, it's shaky. Break Out is incredibly difficult—it's now not so much a question of "Who dies this chapter?" any more as it is "What do I reveal about the cause of The Rules in this chapter?" The Long and Winding Road is definitely no easier. I have a few definite antagonists and know there's a lot of walking, but it doesn't feel like enough to sustain a real story. Trying to throw in a chain of romantic events on top of that is so out of my element I don't even know what I'm trying to do sometimes. My original fictions don't get enough attention right now for them to have any real semblances of plot.

Maybe I'm too caught up in trying to prove myself or something when I don't feel like there's much there to prove. My readers have a history of thinking of me differently, but they don't pay money to read my things, nor do they have to worry about getting to know characters (though there are some exceptions for the latter). I don't know whether to not worry about trying to sell anything at all, given I don't have a great tendency to finish original works anyway, or to push myself to get better, however I go about doing that. Apparently I haven't been doing it right the past few years, because I can't read Unsurvivable any more easily than I can read Brutal. Maybe the 2YN course will help. Maybe I should go with more outlines. Maybe I should just listen to the advice of everyone in the world and keep writing as a secret little hobby only to keep my head from exploding from life. Maybe I should sign up for psychiatric help. Who knows?

What is plot, anyway? Introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement, right? But what is it like in the real world of novelling? I mean, people can't even settle on when the climax of Hamlet is, and that work tends to be considered decent. Is it all really just about keeping people's interest, or is it the pretty little literature class mountain diagram, or is it just whatever weird stuff you want to put on a page? Is there anything in particular that makes a plot good? Terrible? Just okay?

Eh, I'm just having one of those "why do I bother writing" days, I guess. I'll probably get over it, but advice would still help.

Plotting and Planning

What do you all do for plotting? I've heard a popular strategy in NaNoWriMo is making outlines and writing from them, and Novelist's Boot Camp requires very extensive outlining.

I really can't handle it, to the point I'm not sure if I can go with the NBC strategy. I have problems outlining essays—anything for which I have to outline ends up choppy with extremely questionable/terrible transitions. I may not hit absolutely everything without an outline, but at least I feel like it flows. That's just for nonfiction, too—something that draws only from my own inspiration is going to feel much worse than usual if I try to make it fit something.

On the other hand, I can't just decide to write a chapter (*cough* first chapter of Break Out *cough*) and write it. I need to have some prior plan in my head, and I have plotted "outlines" of entire chapters like this. Actually, I think it's more like making a movie of it, though I do end up with a few loose phrases I want to incorporate (a lot of which I actually don't, incidentally...).

I'm not sure exactly how much organization I'm trying to get—or how much I need to get. It's an art, I guess. Until then, pantsing it is.