Plot and Language. Do They Come From Different Parts of the Brain?

 Fiction writing is complex. There’s a lot that goes into it. Here’s a point to consider: your ability to plot and tell a story come from a different place than language usage—style, voice, insight, interior life of a character.

 This was a huge revelation for me. THEY COME FROM DIFFERENT PLACES IN YOUR MIND and you can’t do both at the same time. At least not as well as you can when you separate the actions.

In practical terms, I think this means that you should try to separate them when you go through whatever your writing process is. Work on story and use that part of your brain. Write out some sentences telling yourself what you want to happen in the scene, what your goals are, and how it moves the big story forward. 

If you’re a discovery writer like me, a panser, you’re not going to be able to outline the whole story, so the way that you do this is by focusing on a single scene or chapter. Think just about the story, the bones of it, the plot of the scene. 

Then, when you’re writing the chapter, focus on language. Having already plotted out the scene, you can try to make the language express the inner conflict of the character. Your style. Your personality. Write sentences that clearly show what you’re trying to make the reader think or feel or that describe the setting or whatever you’re trying to describe. 

Separating the creation of your plot points from your use of language and all the things that go into writing your sentences will, I think, help you be better at both.