Cozy Mystery Book Plotting Beats // My Frankenstein Outline Method

[@patg7714]

Thanks so much for this!!!!!! Im crying from relief 💖💖💖💖

[@ANSageWrites]

Enjoy! Happy it can help and thank you for watching ❤️

[@KimtheElder]

I got Dabble because of your initial review, and I adore it. Twice I’ve exported my book from Word to my Kindle to read and edit it. Super simple - and I love writing scene by scene. I did that in Google Docs, but it’s just different. Its the perfect helping tool for me with how my brain works. I color-coded my acts and my scene cards, I’ve put in where I drop clues. I have columns for each person. There’s so many options, but it’s clean, not junky. I can have as little or as much as I want.

[@ANSageWrites]

That’s amazing and so good to hear! I really love the program and have even started using it on my iPad. The ability to work on many surfaces is great ❤️

[@tevinfitzgerald8047]

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!! I plotted my entire book using this!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@ANSageWrites]

omg yay!!!!!!! That’s so awesome to hear. I’m excited to see another cozy out in the world. So glad these were helpful ❤️

[@patriciadanna7433]

Thanks for sharing your process. Great information.

[@ANSageWrites]

Happy it helped and thank you for watching!

[@nancywakeley9853]

With this template, where do you recommend adding subplot(s)? (Great video by the way!)

[@ANSageWrites]

I would probably give them more page time between beat 8 and 9. Somewhere in that general part of the book. I usually give hints to subplots earlier, especially if they are romantic subplots, but I don't devote big scenes to them until after the sleuth's reasons to investigate and we get more traction in the main mystery. I have a much more detailed plotting structure in my latest book as well which might help even more.

[@tblackthorne]

opposition of the story, can you elaborate on that? Maybe a few examples? Especially how it links back when you're further along in the story. And how do you deal with story hooks?

[@ANSageWrites]

The opposite would be for your characters goals. So for example if your characters goal is to open a successful bakery, the opposition to that could be a police investigation closing it down. A murder is also often a good opposition to goals, especially when the protagonist gets framed for it. Essentially the goals opposition in a cozy mystery is often related to the antagonist and their actions. So as you progress in the story, you can keep putting road blocks in your protagonist’s way of reaching their goals. Another murder, something that threatens their cozy life, anything that would prevent them from reaching their main goals. For story hooks, I will be doing a more detailed video on those since there is a lot of information to go over there 😊

[@DianaKanan-r1q]

It looks like every beat is a chapter?

[@ANSageWrites]

That’s how I set them up initially. As I write, things get shifted around. Some beats will take up a chapter, some will only be a paragraph long. The setup is just to show where they will fit in the story and in which part of the plot 😊