Off on a Plot Walk...

“I’m just off out for a plot walk.”

Maybe as little as five years ago, I didn’t know what a plot walk was. Now it’s a Twitter hashtag, with its own variants (such as #plotsit) and one which is usually accompanied by gorgeous photographs. 

When I say I didn’t know what it was, I really mean I didn’t know that it had a name and that quite so many other writers do the same as I do when they’ve been staring at the screen for so long their eyes hurt and their story is at the I-need-this-to-happen-but-it’s-impossible stage. They slam the laptop shut, pull on coat and hat and scarf and wellies (because a real plot walk is not fair weather dependent) and head out. And somewhere in the wind and rain, among the sodden cats and battered daisies of the local front, the fallen leaves and left-over cans of Stella in the park, or the tell-tale explosion of pigeon feathers at the edge of the field, they will usually find inspiration. 

That’s when they post about it. I imagine many of them are like me and, when the soggy ramble ends in failure, they shrug, go home, have a cup of coffee, and get on with the washing up. 

In fact I’m more likely to try a plot cycle rather than a plot walk; although I’m gradually realising that plot cycles are less effective (and, in direct contradiction to what I’ve said above, much more dependent on fair weather). Because you’re travelling faster there’s always something else to think about. Is the road wide enough for that lorry to get past me? Oops, that horse looks a little skittish — better give it a wide berth. Watch that pothole. And oh my god, is that a hare?

What a plot cycle often does, however, is produce a story prompt. There’s that abandoned shoe on the pavement, in all its morning-after abandonment. (Is that how Cinderella was written?) There’s the cyclist I was chasing up a hill to see how much of the distance I could make up and who just disappeared. (All right, turned off when out of sight, but that’s how plots are born.) There’s the abandoned child’s toy in the middle of a lonely road. (Yes, we know the child thew it out of the car window.) And there's that cat that knows everyone and seems to have no home.

Do plot walks work for you? Or do you have an alternative solution? I would love to know.