I plot very aggressively. I don't use workbooks, note cards, or any software. (I do have a private wiki, though! But that's just because I like how it's organized.) My process goes like so:
- I know I write roughly 4K chapters and want finished novels somewhere around 80K, so I will have roughly 20ish chapters. (Don't worry, I don't actually stick to this at all.)
- But a very loose concept of chapters lets me start storyboarding. I use the 7-point story structure to start. If you have 20ish chapters, you have major transitional events around 5ish, 10ish, and 15ish.
- I brainstorm until I can fill all 7 story points in.
- Then I write an outline. Every chapter has a header. For every chapter, I briefly summarize everything what happens. Who goes where, who does what, why. It's very high level. (At this point the number of chapters will change dramatically, as well as the specific location of most of the plot points. So the steps above are probably just a form of structured brainstorming.)
- I work on the outline until I can read it through and the whole thing makes logical sense. At that point I know why people do things and how they get from points A to B and I can start "working back" from big reveals. So if something huge is revealed in Chapter 8, then I can make sure it's foreshadowed sufficiently before that.
- And then I write the thing, and change as much as I want. Sometimes stuff makes perfect sense in the outline, but not when I'm actually in a character's head. That's fine. I seldom go back and re-outline unless I change something so profound I no longer know what I'm doing.