Help I have an overcomplicated plot

perhaps stop doodling and start writing?

or work it ALL out first, then go back and see how much of that brain-stretching is for stuff that should be cout out because it doesn't do anything to advence the plot, and go from there.

i think that's probably your 2 main path choices....

Those are the best types of books to write. You won't get writer's block! Just start writing and let things get crazy. You're figure out a way to bring it all back together at some point.

Stephen King had this same problem when he wrote The Stand. He made things so complicated that he couldn't finish the book. Finally, a solution occurred to him: Kill off half the characters. And it worked. The Stand is one of his best novels.

It sounds like you might have more than one book in there.

Another vote for just start writing. When you're actually writing it, it'll be easier to control where everything is going.

TWINS!!!! No wonder the labor's been so difficult.

More seriously, you stand a chance of having an overly long book in addition to overly complicated. I of course haven't seen your outline or completed chapter, but I've found for myself that simplicity trumps intricacy. My first attempt at one of my novels ran 230K words. I could only get it to 106K by having the characters only go to half the places they did originally (it's a travel novel). See if some of the twists you have planned might work in a different novel if things get out of hand (which they might not).

Chris P said:

It sounds like you might have more than one book in there.

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That was my thought too. Maybe you should try and outline a follow up novel?

Try looking at it from only one POV. If you're looking at it from multiple POV's, you might be more likely to flesh out their subplots more than you otherwise would.

It might work quite well if you concentrated on the main point of view and let the rest work as subplots that took place more behind-the-scenes than the way you're envisioning it right now.

If nothing else, it may solidify certain plot elements to you looking at it this way.

Start writing. I have several notebooks full of plot lines for my first two manuscripts. Once I started writing, I found that I only used SOME of them. The rest are there for another manuscript...another time.

Good ideas don't die. They just wait around for the right time.

emmyshimmy said:

My problem is: as I solve one problem three new great twists present themselves and demand to be included.

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Watch Lost. Marvel at the first couple and last couple seasons, and don't feel any qualms about emulating them. But avoid letting your book turn into the few intervening seasons.

What's the main, overarching problem? What's the main goal? Who is the main antagonist?

It's easy to get caught along a big twisting path that diverges so much from the main story that the story loses all focus. My suggestion is to consider the main goals and what the overarching story is, and then to keep those elements that further that plot. Any other random ideas can be tossed into an idea folder and fed into another story later.

I have no helpful advice here, just want to say that I do the same thing as the OP, and it leads to never finishing anything longer than a short story. I think I'll also be taking the just-start-writing approach and see how it works.

I find some of my favorite books are the ones that take something fairly straightforward and do it really well. If you have a great hook and the book takes me step by step through it, right in the action, that's great. If it gets off on a bunch of side tracks, that can be frustrating.

If it was me, I would pick the most important things, get a basic outline where you can see through to the end and start writing. If along the way you pick up a few subplots and change things, great. The manuscript can be reedited at any time, but it will probably help to get some sort of framework down in the first draft. A lot of those "Oh, wow, cool!" ideas may sound great in your head, but once you try to write them down, you may realize they don't fit these characters, or would be better saved for another manuscript. Or, once you reach the end, you can always bulk up places that need it.

My advice?

Chuck the outline and just write. Period.

emmyshimmy said:

My problem is: as I solve one problem three new great twists present themselves and demand to be included.

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Treat them like Jehovah's Witnesses: just tell them 'no, thanks' and close the door in their faces.

Who's in charge here?

quicklime said:

perhaps stop doodling and start writing?

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Agreed. Outlining is like shopping from a candy catalog...ooh, I want some of this, and some of that, and some of that! But if you have to make the candy, you're likely to go for a much simpler selection.

That is, if you get down and start writing, it will be easier to see the relevance, or irrelevance, of some of these subplots, so you can keep the good stuff and dump the rest.

You might also consider whether all the POVs you're using are necessary. I wrote a blog about this week. http://kenradaniels.wordpress.com/ Often, incorporating too many POVs is what complicates a plot to the point it is difficult to write.

No such thing as an over complicated plot.

Just write. And Write. And Write.

Good advice all around here, but I will add that you need to focus on your theme. It will inform everything else about your story, from the individual character arcs to the sequencing and flow. Once you know what you want to say, you can eliminate anything that distracts from that purpose. Your story is only overcomplicated if you are using too many, or the wrong elements to get your point across. Writers that lose sight of (or even neglect) their theme are the ones that usually struggle to connect the dots. I always find that once I know what I'm sitting down to write "about", and I am not referring to plot here, the story will inform you what bits should be left by the wayside.

Alan_Often said:

Good advice all around here, but I will add that you need to focus on your theme. It will inform everything else about your story, from the individual character arcs to the sequencing and flow.

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I disagree. When you're writing the First Draft, you should focus on the characters and story, perhaps with the premise as a reminder taped to your screen, but not much else. The theme will reveal itself during the Editing Process, which comes after finishing the First Draft. [By the way, this is a guideline, not a Rule].

If you focus too much on your theme, your story becomes 'thematic': the Message will come too much to the foreground, instead lurking in the background where it's supposed to stay.