subtletylost
Formerly fishii
I was wondering if anyone might have any simple advice on how to make outlines? I'm struggling to make one for my story and it's making me really disheartened.
Outlines
- Thread starter subtletylost
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Assuming you mean synopsis or querys? If a planning document, others will be able to help more.
If a synopsis (an outline of the plot of your story) - take the key points and list them, leaving out side arcs, and then get people to read it for you and see if it makes sense.
If a query - have a look at queryshark's blog and Query letter hell on Absolute write, but essentially two paragraphs:
Who is your protagonist, what do they need to acheive, what stands in their way, what happens if they fail. With a bit of hooky da-da-daaaaaa. Again, get others to read it (the writing group is useful for that as the queries etc can't be seen on general view.)
If a synopsis (an outline of the plot of your story) - take the key points and list them, leaving out side arcs, and then get people to read it for you and see if it makes sense.
If a query - have a look at queryshark's blog and Query letter hell on Absolute write, but essentially two paragraphs:
Who is your protagonist, what do they need to acheive, what stands in their way, what happens if they fail. With a bit of hooky da-da-daaaaaa. Again, get others to read it (the writing group is useful for that as the queries etc can't be seen on general view.)
Storyteller Tools by M Harold Page is a pretty good and concise guide to structuring. He joined the forums after I posted a review here:
Review: Storyteller Tools by M Harold Page
Also, be aware of general story structure and how that might apply to the genre of your work. For example, Epic Fantasy tends to draw on The Hero's Journey, whereas a lot of thrillers/detective fiction are focused on the unravelling a puzzle. I know there are a few books on writing that deal with structural issues - Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer might be one of the simplest and easiest places to start.
goldhawk
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Part of learning to write is learning what works for you and what doesn't. If you're having trouble with outlines, then maybe they're not for you. 
If you're going to outline, you have to know the structure of a story. There are many ideas about this: the 3-act structure, the 4-act one, the 5-act one, Hero's Journey, the Snowflake Method. Again, it's a matter of finding which (if any) will work for you.
If you're going to outline, you have to know the structure of a story. There are many ideas about this: the 3-act structure, the 4-act one, the 5-act one, Hero's Journey, the Snowflake Method. Again, it's a matter of finding which (if any) will work for you.
subtletylost
Formerly fishii
@Jo Zebedee this is mostly for synopsis/a planning document (i think?) so I can know what I still need to write in the first draft to have the majority of the plot and story out of the way when I go into the next draft. I only wish I was at the querying stage.
@Brian Turner I'm going to take a look at Wonderbook it looks simple enough for my adhd brain to understand without five and a half hours of distraction trying to think about what I'm being told.
@goldhawk I've tried probably 50 times to do this outline, again so I can know what I still need to write to get to my desired end, and have yet to be able to do it. Once I was made to have to outline an essay and I nearly died. I'm a lot better at just flat writing. I'm just determined to have a rough outline for this project to know if I'm even writing the story I'm trying to.
Could someone explain the Snowflake method simply? It's always seemed overly complicated to me.
@Brian Turner I'm going to take a look at Wonderbook it looks simple enough for my adhd brain to understand without five and a half hours of distraction trying to think about what I'm being told.
@goldhawk I've tried probably 50 times to do this outline, again so I can know what I still need to write to get to my desired end, and have yet to be able to do it. Once I was made to have to outline an essay and I nearly died. I'm a lot better at just flat writing. I'm just determined to have a rough outline for this project to know if I'm even writing the story I'm trying to.
Could someone explain the Snowflake method simply? It's always seemed overly complicated to me.
You start really small (with one sentence) and then build it up step by step. If it's the same snowflake method as I think it is.
To outline: take your existing story and write a chapter summary for all the chapters you have written -- just a few lines, with the significant plot developments.
e.g.
Ch1 Bob moves into his new house. That night Sue hears weird things in the attic.
Ch2 The pest controller sent up to the attic doesn't come down again. Bob finds a severed head in the soup pan.
Ch3 The priest Sue called to look at the head, doesn't come out of the kitchen...
If you do that, you can see what you have (I bet your chapter summaries will be longer than mine, but I'm not writing about a real book) and then it will be easier to write the full summary.
No one likes them. There is no easy way (unless you write them before you write the story) and almost no one does them well.
To outline: take your existing story and write a chapter summary for all the chapters you have written -- just a few lines, with the significant plot developments.
e.g.
Ch1 Bob moves into his new house. That night Sue hears weird things in the attic.
Ch2 The pest controller sent up to the attic doesn't come down again. Bob finds a severed head in the soup pan.
Ch3 The priest Sue called to look at the head, doesn't come out of the kitchen...
If you do that, you can see what you have (I bet your chapter summaries will be longer than mine, but I'm not writing about a real book) and then it will be easier to write the full summary.
No one likes them. There is no easy way (unless you write them before you write the story) and almost no one does them well.
Travis Woodward
Maker of plans
I found this blog post to be a really helpful starting point: Pretentious Title: How I Plot A Novel in 5 Steps
As others have said you need to find your own process - fwiw I've found outlining to be quite fun once I got going.
Being able to cull a subplot that's going no where or to go back and add a new main character just by editing a few bullets instead of thousands of words can be extremely liberating!
As others have said you need to find your own process - fwiw I've found outlining to be quite fun once I got going.
Being able to cull a subplot that's going no where or to go back and add a new main character just by editing a few bullets instead of thousands of words can be extremely liberating!
goldhawk
aurea plectro
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Sounds to me you're a pantser, not a plotter. Many writers write without an outline. If it doesn't work for you, then skip it.
subtletylost
Formerly fishii
@Hex that seems to be working pretty well for what I've got so far, it's even helping me with the problem I had of knowing where to split the chapters. Not sure how well it'll work once I get through with everything I've already written, though.
@goldhawk I'm a person who never gets any stories finished. Wait, I finished two stories, one was 8000 words for a class in high school and the other was a 3200 word fanfic. But nothing on a large scale. That's why I thought I might try outlining.
@goldhawk I'm a person who never gets any stories finished. Wait, I finished two stories, one was 8000 words for a class in high school and the other was a 3200 word fanfic. But nothing on a large scale. That's why I thought I might try outlining.
subtletylost
Formerly fishii
I didn't think of it like that. Even though I'm pretty sure that right there was the exact reason that I started trying to make an outline in the first place.
I don't know if this is any help, because we all work so differently, but I tend to start out with no outline. If it's a short, that's usually fine the whole way through, but for a novel, I often get to the stage where I need to know where all the different plot arcs and characters are going. That's when I try to sketch out a basic outline, starting from where I got to by free-writing. I don't necessarily stick to the outline, but it helps to have something in place, even if it's only inside my head.
The other reason for an outline is when I've written myself into a dead-end. Then I do an outline of everything I've written so far and try to see where it began to go wrong. If I try to continue the outline to the end, it often shows up the flaws, the places where the whole thing began to go pear-shaped. Then (in theory!) I can fix it....
The other reason for an outline is when I've written myself into a dead-end. Then I do an outline of everything I've written so far and try to see where it began to go wrong. If I try to continue the outline to the end, it often shows up the flaws, the places where the whole thing began to go pear-shaped. Then (in theory!) I can fix it....
subtletylost
Formerly fishii
@Kerrybuchanan and that is exactly what I'm trying to do. A basic outline to know where all the parts of the plot are going.
And you're struggling with it? Have you plotted yourself into a corner (my forté)?
Try taking main characters and writing out a quick summary of what each one has done up to now, with a sketch of the main features of each one's personality. Maybe your MC is impulsive and doesn't think; or perhaps he/she is slow and methodical. What would that character do next, if they were a real person? Put yourself in their shoes.
Repeat for each one, until you have a list of actions they might take, and motivations that might move them. Then see if any of these can shift your plot forward. I hope that one of these will trigger new ideas for you, and you'll be up and running again. Or not....
Try taking main characters and writing out a quick summary of what each one has done up to now, with a sketch of the main features of each one's personality. Maybe your MC is impulsive and doesn't think; or perhaps he/she is slow and methodical. What would that character do next, if they were a real person? Put yourself in their shoes.
Repeat for each one, until you have a list of actions they might take, and motivations that might move them. Then see if any of these can shift your plot forward. I hope that one of these will trigger new ideas for you, and you'll be up and running again. Or not....
subtletylost
Formerly fishii
I'm mostly struggling because I just struggle with outlines in general.
I know where I am, barely at the beginning, and I know where I want to go, the end. But I don't know how I get there.
More specifically, the MC just got the books that will teach her what she needs to know to become a "hopper", that is a person who can move between universes in the multiverse to fulfil some purpose (in her case restoring the universes to their normal routine). So now she needs to move from having just got the books, to being able to use them to their full extent and correct the problem with her own universe and save its other hopper (her sister) from being killed by the gang that controls their city. There's more than just her sister's life at stake, if she fails the universe will fall out of balance among the others because her sister never named a successor to her job as a hopper.
The problem I have, and keep having, is that I keep starting and writing scenes that don't have anything to do specifically with that main plot and it's beginning to make me question if that main plot is the plot of one book, or the overall arc of multiple books.
@Kerrybuchanan I will try that, I'm not sure it'll help but I'll try it.
My problem isn't exactly writer's block. I'm still writing, still have ideas, still moving along. My problem is that I'm really worried that I'm going to end up either with a 250K word first draft because my writing can't just decide to skip things that have nothing to do with actually telling the story and everything to do with making sure people know the characters, or I'm going to end up not writing crucial scenes and end up with a second draft that's half revised stuff and half brand new scenes that still need revising. The first is not as bad as the second, it's easy for me to decide something doesn't fit once I've written it, I've done that with three scenes already.
I know where I am, barely at the beginning, and I know where I want to go, the end. But I don't know how I get there.
More specifically, the MC just got the books that will teach her what she needs to know to become a "hopper", that is a person who can move between universes in the multiverse to fulfil some purpose (in her case restoring the universes to their normal routine). So now she needs to move from having just got the books, to being able to use them to their full extent and correct the problem with her own universe and save its other hopper (her sister) from being killed by the gang that controls their city. There's more than just her sister's life at stake, if she fails the universe will fall out of balance among the others because her sister never named a successor to her job as a hopper.
The problem I have, and keep having, is that I keep starting and writing scenes that don't have anything to do specifically with that main plot and it's beginning to make me question if that main plot is the plot of one book, or the overall arc of multiple books.
@Kerrybuchanan I will try that, I'm not sure it'll help but I'll try it.
My problem isn't exactly writer's block. I'm still writing, still have ideas, still moving along. My problem is that I'm really worried that I'm going to end up either with a 250K word first draft because my writing can't just decide to skip things that have nothing to do with actually telling the story and everything to do with making sure people know the characters, or I'm going to end up not writing crucial scenes and end up with a second draft that's half revised stuff and half brand new scenes that still need revising. The first is not as bad as the second, it's easy for me to decide something doesn't fit once I've written it, I've done that with three scenes already.
That's normal - just write.
You're going to have to rewrite anyway - it's part of the job. However, being aware of some of the technical points now can help reduce that workload IMO.
goldhawk
aurea plectro
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If your subconscious is having different ideas, perhaps you should just go with it for a while to see where it will lead. If you can't use what you write in this story, perhaps you can use them in another. I don't think you find it a complete waste of time just to write down the ideas in your head.
For my first novel (currently in draft 2), I used the snowflake method, but I found it quickly became too messy to work in everything I wanted, and it was hard to properly pace out the character arcs.
For my next novel I plan to try the "points on a map" approach, which says to start with your ending. Where do you want different arcs to end... the main plot, each character, any relationships, sub-plots, etc. Then going backwards, what has to happen before the final thing can occur? Pick a few scenes that move the arc forward, and a few that set it back, and lay them out in reverse. These represent your points on the map, and you basically write the story filling in between the points.
So when its time to actually write, you can pick a scene from arc A and B, and there is your chapter. Then you can use B and F for chapter 2, etc.
For my next novel I plan to try the "points on a map" approach, which says to start with your ending. Where do you want different arcs to end... the main plot, each character, any relationships, sub-plots, etc. Then going backwards, what has to happen before the final thing can occur? Pick a few scenes that move the arc forward, and a few that set it back, and lay them out in reverse. These represent your points on the map, and you basically write the story filling in between the points.
So when its time to actually write, you can pick a scene from arc A and B, and there is your chapter. Then you can use B and F for chapter 2, etc.
I agree with @Brian Turner and @goldhawk. If the ideas are flowing,just get them down there. Words are never wasted.
If you end up with a 250k novel, so be it. Cutting out extraneous phrases is easy and when you finish you might well see obvious places where the story meandered away. Those can be edited or pruned, and maybe you can get some short stories or another book out of them later.
It's normal to lose/gain loads in each rewrite -- I've lost count of how many full rewrites I've done on my WIP and it's changed massively each time.
Go for it. Get to the end, then look at the whole project. It might surprise you.
If you end up with a 250k novel, so be it. Cutting out extraneous phrases is easy and when you finish you might well see obvious places where the story meandered away. Those can be edited or pruned, and maybe you can get some short stories or another book out of them later.
It's normal to lose/gain loads in each rewrite -- I've lost count of how many full rewrites I've done on my WIP and it's changed massively each time.
Go for it. Get to the end, then look at the whole project. It might surprise you.
subtletylost
Formerly fishii
I think I've hear more advice about outlines here than ever before in my life. And for once they all make sense to me. If just can't do it myself, the outline I mean, it's not like cheating or wrong of me in any way to get my beta and friends to help me with that, is it?
One thing I've noticed in all the scenes I'm writing that seem ill focused on the plot, is they're all character based. I think it's possible that I've been practicing with too much fanfiction, or I might just be a more character focused writer.
I never find my words wasted, I just get kind of disappointed when I know I'm not going to end up needing that 2-5K word scene I just wrote, because in the final story it won't matter to anyone but the MC that whatever happened in the scene happened.
One thing I've noticed in all the scenes I'm writing that seem ill focused on the plot, is they're all character based. I think it's possible that I've been practicing with too much fanfiction, or I might just be a more character focused writer.
I never find my words wasted, I just get kind of disappointed when I know I'm not going to end up needing that 2-5K word scene I just wrote, because in the final story it won't matter to anyone but the MC that whatever happened in the scene happened.
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