For whatever reason, whenever I'm asked for advice about writing, plotting seems to be the part of the process that aspiring writers are most resistant to. I've gotten comments like, "it takes too much time; I'd rather spend that time writing," or "I like to be much more organic with my process; I like to see where the story goes naturally," or "It doesn't seem to make any difference to my writing, so why bother?" or "I write short stories; what good is plotting going to do for me?" or "I never stick to my outline anyway, so I just stopped using one." In an attempt to convince you to at least do some plotting for your work, I'll address each of those concerns separately. Also, I'd like to say that I don't know a single published author - and I know quite a few personally, and I read blogs and articles from many others - who doesn't do any plotting at all. While I'm sure there are some exceptions to that, it seems that the large majority does plot. That should tell you that plotting appears to be the habit of successful writers, and like my father told me years ago when I started a new job - look around and find the person in your field you think is the most successful and do what they do until you get your feet under you.
