Don't let the title fool you - this isn't about how to get from here to the store, it's how to get from plot point A to plot point B. We thank Comicfan for this look at "Getting Directions"! If you have a tip you'd like to share with the community, let me know!

Everyone enjoys a great story. You read along following the action, learning about the characters, seeing the problem, and finally getting to the conclusion. It all seems so smooth and easy. However, ask any writer how they did it and they will give you a dozen different answers or more.

To put it at the simplest of terms you must take your character from point a to point b, but the question is how do you do it? That varies from author to author and is something you need to decide for yourself.

Some authors are great fans of outlines. They plan their story out from beginning to end, showing every conflict, resolution, and character interaction in the widest possible form before writing. This way they know what they want to accomplish and then work carefully from their outline. If you ask them how they accomplished their work, they tell you it was structured and set up before the pen ever touched paper, or a finger began typing in today’s world.

Another school of thought is to carefully plan out your characters. You have a complete dossier on them. This will include their names, ages, addresses, likes, dislikes, skills, and names and sketches of their closest friends and family. When they begin to write then, they know their characters inside and out, allowing them to guide them from beginning to end with only a rough idea of how to get there. When you ask these authors how they got from the beginning to end they tell you, their characters led or told them how to do it.

Then there are those who jump in with both feet and no set guidelines. They start and stop, change and go forward then back, but never have a clear destination in place. Their stories like their characters seem to meander near and far, but after a while seem pointless because the author was never sure what they were doing with them in the first place.

Every writer is different, and they will have a different way of approaching the subject of how to plot their tale. The main thing to keep in mind is a story needs to include some sort of problem for your characters and a resolution. Doesn’t mean the problem is solved, but it is a way to bring it to an end. Think of your favorite stories and the journey the characters underwent. Did they grow up, find a new love, kill someone, rescue something, or just go visit a family member? Along the way what did they see and do? That is the direction the author has taken and when writing your own story remember to include your own brand of those ideas.

Enjoy your writing, bring your reader along, and may you both have fun at the end.