Hi,i'm relatively new here, been reading posts for a while and have found some of the advice quite useful and sympathised with many of the shared gripes and troubles others have written about.
I have 5 days to write a detailed plan of the next 2 years of my life and my dissertation. I had longer, but was paralysed by the dread and seeming impossibility of having any clue what I'll be doing in a year's time. I'm starting yr 2 of 3 and now and need to start producing chapters at a steady rate. My supervisors are finally satisfied that I am well-enough situated in the various disciplines of my interdiscipl. subject and have requested a 'narrative description' the next 2 years and what each chapter will be about.

So do any fellow humanities PhD students have advice about plotting out imagined chapters? I have a general idea of what I'll deal with in each, but don't feel it's specific enough to put into a convincing narrative. Any books/methods that have been useful to others? How long does it usually take you to produce a chapter? What pitfalls have influenced your usual level of production? Many thanks in advance!

One thing I have found which has helped me is making diagrams. I'm in humanities as well and found this is one of the best ways to see the path through my work, as visually each of the chapters is broken down and developed (Sometimes its nice to use it as an exercise to move theory in and out of certain chapters.)
Sit down, give each chapter a diagram, put in all the things you would like to / need to put into each chapter. Even at this stage it doesn't have to be your final chapters. You will find yourself looking at the greater picture of all your imagined chapters put together and thinking whether or not they are coherent. Things can move in and out, or into other chapters.

This is something that doesn't take a long time and can stimulate ideas.It will also reduce the volume of work you feel needs done. With diagrams it is broken into smaller pieces which you can work through.
Don't be afraid to show your supervisor your working diagram it will help them to see where your focus and how your theory will be used.

Good Luck!

My tip would be to just start getting stuff down on paper, don't be stalled by the bigger picture of actually writing these chapters, and start sketching out your broad ideas of what you would like to find/what you would like to address. Looking at your research questions will help for this, and the task will seem a lot easier once you get the broad strokes down. Good luck

...also, re the time it takes to write a chapter, I found sticking to an 8 week turnaround worked for me, e.g. I spend 6 weeks writing a draft chapter, soop reads over it and we have a meeting 1/2 weeks later about corrections, then I have 2 or so weeks to resubmit. I found I made steady progress this way, and soop was happy to stick to it too but it is horses for courses though