Plot Mapping

My 3 book "trilogy" came out of a short story I wrote for college. When I went back to make a novel out of it, it took on a life of its own, with the backstory becoming interesting enough to warrant a prequel. I've been since working on all 4 in tandem, the prequel forcing me to flesh out parts of the other story where I realized the time line wouldn't work.
That said, I found time-lines and maps of the area tremendously helpful. I even went so far at finding a yearly calendar for each of the years my books take place. I found this helps when mentioning days of the week and time frames.
As for actual plot strategy. Maybe my next group of books.
CJ

I do something Larry Brooks calls "Story Beats." I just write, line by line, a summary of what happens in the story, chronologically (usually two or three pages), then divide into chapters. If something new occurs to me, I can place it in the story beats where it belongs before I've written the entire story. Taking the time to plan saves writing time, in the long run. Larry Brooks's blog is called Story Fix http://storyfix.com/  He also has very expensive seminars and on line classes, but I think I've gotten enough from the blog and his books. (Some are free on Kindle)

ps Is it redundant to use summary and chronologically in the same sentence?

Suin, you may also find interesting The Snow Flake method, which is another approach to planning a story before writing it. http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/a … ke-method/

Kiss

Gacela