Card: She Marries Him; Card: She's Arrested for His Murder…

My current favorite method for planning involves notecards. These can be the 3 by 5 or 4 by 6. I prefer 3 by 5, myself, since those can nicely fit in one of those little envelopes that I can label.

Like all the methods I've mentioned, the notecard method can be used for planning a bit of writing at the outset, for destroying writer's block, and for character development and other worldbuilding elements. The corkboard method is related to this in that you usually start with the notecards then tack them up. Without the corkboard, notecards can be arranged in a stack, on the floor, or whatever.

To use the notecards, buy a few stacks. Then jot down one scene per card in the order that you think of them. Don't worry about the order or the gaps. Just jot down scenes. (Even ones you're not sure about including, though you might want to mark those in the upper side margin.)

When you can't think of any more, start arranging the notecards in chronological order, even if your novel won't be written that way. Start looking till you find a gap. What are the scenes on either side of the gap? What will get those characters from point A to point B?

The ideas often start flooding at that point, at least for plots. Take the title of this post. There's quite a gap between the heroine marrying a man and her being arrested for his murder. The murder scene strikes me immediately as one missing. Even if it's not going to end up as a scene in the final work, the how, when, why and all of the murder will obviously affect the rest of the book. What was she doing while he was being murdered, if she wasn't the murderer? What do the police find at the scene to make them arrest her?

I find this method best for plot planning; free association helps me better for worldbuilding. If you don't like those little envelopes or prefer 4 by 6 cards, try using file clips to keep your notecards together.

One downside to this method is its cost. (And all those envelopes of 3 by 5 cards you'll have lying around.) It's not much, but it's more than many of the others can be if you refuse to buy any aids and stick to a free word processor that you already own. I've found it more than worth it.