# How do you outline?



## Nimue (Jul 20, 2017)

Both a specific and a general question, I suppose.  How do you guys write outlines, and how _does_ one write a proper outline, anyway?

I’ve known for a long time that I’m a plotter--pantsing gives me an utter mess, fulminating with subplots, and the monster’s appearance by the cold light of day stops me writing in my tracks--but I’ve never really written a thorough, scene-by-scene outline.  Vague plot structure notation and pages and pages of stream-of-consciousness maunderings, yes.  Mostly holding everything in my head like someone serving soup from a sieve, yes.  I’m looking for better organizational tools.  At this point I’ve gone through a brief outline, maybe a sentence per scene or chapter chunk, and it’s already untangled my chronology, simplified character roles, and given me a clearer image of the story as a whole.

Any advice for the next step of outlining at the scene level?  I’ve been listening to Writing Excuses and reading a few writer blogs, so I have a vague idea of noting motivation, conflict, outcome, etc.  But it would be nice to have more resources at hand, and to hear if there are ways of approaching this that have worked well for you.


----------



## Aurora (Jul 20, 2017)

I don't outline so can't give advice there. However, learning story structure is invaluable and basically what plotting is designed to help you do: construct a proper story with plot points, pinch points, climax, etc. Shawn Coyne's Story Grid is chewy and complex but has been very helpful in understanding the finer details of scene construction and beyond. If I could recommend anything, it would be this one and also Libbie Hawker's Take Off Your Pants, which was highly recommended in my author group so I had to try it out and was pleasantly surprised. Hope this helps.


----------



## Michael K. Eidson (Jul 20, 2017)

I wrote an outline for my WIP. For my outline, I wrote down the highlights for the various plot points and pinch points in the three act structure. The highlights cover not only major events and character movement from one major location to another, but also how the character arcs for important characters are being impacted. I also include what important pieces of knowledge the characters come by, and when they come by it.

My outline is not rigorous. I discovery write between the plot points and pinch points, but know where I'm headed. It's fun to discover how the story gets from one point to the next, and that keeps me motivated to write on this particular story. I've also left the resolution ambiguous enough in the outline that I can discovery write that part of the story, but have outlined it enough to know that I can resolve it. The exact nature of the resolution will be in flux until I write it, because if I were to _decide_ precisely how the story will be resolved, I will lose interest in _writing_ it. Yes, I could still force myself to write a precisely mapped-out ending, but I'd not have the same excitement about writing it, the same desire to see how everything turns out, and so the lack of excitement would probably show in the writing.

For a list of plot points and pinch points and at what points they might occur in your story, I believe there are some threads on these forums that discuss them. You can also find a convenient list at How to Calculate Your Book's Length Before Writing - Helping Writers Become Authors.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 21, 2017)

First and most important, there is not a proper way to outline, save for the one that works. Think of it as multiple ways to outline, out of which you'll find the one for you. Call that one the proper one. (and anyway, "proper" comes from _proprius_, which in Latin means "one's own" so that's exactly the right way to think about it)

I can't tell you what works for me but I can tell you what I've tried. One was making a list of scenes. That broke down pretty quickly because I did it before I had written anything and there were simply too many directions that story *might* go. 

I've looked at the Snowflake Method. It looks great in theory. I struggle with it because it presumes that I can say what my story is about in one paragraph. After that you keep iterating in greater and greater detail until you're down to scenes. The trouble I have with that is that I never have a clear idea of the story at that stage; or, rather, the clear idea I *think* I have is never what I wind up with. I would need a whole mountainside of snowflakes before I got to the finished product.

So the one I'm trying now is to weave. I have the story idea, which I try to state in a blurb form (under 50 words). I lay out scenes using Scrivener. This gets pretty sloppy because what I think is going to be a scene when I start into it might turn into several, and sometimes a scene is so thin is scarcely can stand. As I get scenes that seem to work, I move them into chapter headings. When I have a bunch (defined as somewhere between one and infinity), I do what you did--I make yet another outline of what I *actually* wrote rather than what I *think* I wrote. And every so often I go back to the top and revise the blurb. I also have side notes on things like theme and character arcs.

It's messy. It's messy even trying to describe it. I don't recommend it to anyone. I contribute this merely to let people know that between Getting Started and Pro Tips lies a vast, steamy swamp of attempts.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 21, 2017)

My outlines are basic. Each scene is listed, chronologically or by scene order, by the main event as a scene title. Underneath, I list each happening that needs to be in the scene. I don't adhere strictly to those points though. If things develop organically while writing, or change in the daily thinking leading up to the actual writing of that scene, I'm happy to let that new development run. When it's time to write a particular scene, I copy and paste from my outline to the chapter and go. 

Once the initial chapter is written, I go back through and fill out scene/chapter worksheets that I've developed. They focus on things like _scene structure and strength_, or the _improvement of metaphors and symbolism_. The worksheets help to spark the addition of elements that I've come to believe make scenes engaging & emotionally powerful.

Often, I wait several weeks after the initial scene draft to do the worksheets. They can be quite time consuming, and I've found a little time allowed for ideas to stew usually helps. 

I know that's off on a bit of a tangent, but I consider my worksheets as part of a dynamic outlining process.


----------



## Rkcapps (Jul 21, 2017)

I'm still finding what works for me. I appreciate the Snowflake method but it doesn't quite work for me. Lately, I've stumbled onto Janice Hardy's blog (good practical advice from a published author) and I've started to structure my scenes as per her advice. This is it:

What is the POV character trying to do in this scene? (the goal)
Why is she trying to do it? (the motivation for that goal)
What’s in the way of her doing it? (the conflict)
What happens if she doesn’t do it? (the stakes)
What goes wrong (or right)? (how the story moves forward)
What important plot or story elements are in the scene? (what you need to remember or what affects future scenes) 

And I try to remember the emotional arc. For example, nervous to confidant and show that arc.

This isn't a be-all and end-all, I use it as a guide to remind me how to shape my scenes. So far, it's working but I'm sure to tire of it and try something else eventually.

There is so much to a novel, this just touches the surface and your final chapters will be slightly different but it's a start. Good luck!


----------



## Demesnedenoir (Jul 21, 2017)

I'm a waypoint writer, which is basically what some others have been pointing out. Some people use more waypoints than others. In my case, the ending is more or less determined, plus some plot points in between. I don't really worry about structure anymore, because it always ends up there for me anymore anyhow. But, studying structure to make sure you use it inherently or on purpose is a good idea. 

So, I have the ending, the beginning is typically pretty squishy until I find the one that clicks, then I have set pieces in between, the big moments I know need to happen for each POV. Coyne's Story Grid is very good, but not necessarily for designing a story, he put it out there more for seeing if a finished story works. It can be used to structure, however. 

When my editor asked about book 2, I thought I might want to formalize a little something in case an agent or pub asked in the future, so I used Coyne's basic grid and slapped in the waypoints in my head into this structure for every POV. For writing an epic, this I'm finding useful, instead of just keeping it all in my head, LOL.

As for outlines, they make me ill. Can't do it. If I tried a scene by scene outline I'd freeze up and never get a thing done. But then, I don't write down characters like a dating profile either, heh heh.

So, down to the scene? It's what motivates the character, the opposition they will face, and the ending... how will they fail, or succeed BUT... So, I sort of do mini-waypoints in my head. I know what needs to happen (the end), I know where it starts, I know it needs tension/conflict/drama, I know I need an ending that ups the dramatic ante on the POV's next chapter, and I know it should change the internal or external character arc. With that info, I write.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 21, 2017)

I used to think outlining meant listing the key features of each section (chapters or maybe scenes/sequels) in a simplified way. A sentence, maybe.

Lately, I've been writing a paragraph or few for each section, summarizing the flow of events and key features. It's more like what you might be telling a friend if you were describing each: 

"X Character wakes up and discovers he's not in bed alone, then remembers that Y had come over for the night. X finds Y attractive, but doesn't feel as strong a bond as Y feels. They talk about a, b, c, as X gets up, dresses, and says he needs to go about his business. He leaves the inn room and runs into Z, learning that d happened during the night; he must now alter his plans to deal with that. He goes down..."

It's practically like actually writing the chapter, but in summary form, and will need to be turned into the actual narrative later. This helps me to brainstorm better. Before, the simple sentence summary for each section was too bare bones, the things mentioned were too broad, and this slowed me down when writing the scenes and chapters because I'd have to stop to consider many of the other details.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 21, 2017)

Like others have said, I too mess around with different forms of outlining. One thing that keeps coming back is that I iterate on my outline several times, adding more and more detail with each iteration (Scratch). This time around I'm working on a series and I'm outlining the entire series from start to end.

What's new is that very early on in the process - in the first scratch already - I'm adding in the Promise of the story as well as the Wants and Needs of the protagonist. I also do a catchy one-sentence summary for each story and that's also included.

Also new in the project is the Trope List. It lists the events of the story as a series of tropes in chronological order. At first this was just for fun, but I found it helps me think of the story from various angles when I build the list and it feels helpful.

If you want to have a look, the first two phases of the outline are available on a page on my blog, here: Werewolves On A Train ? s v r t n s s e

EDIT: 
I haven't gotten down to scene/chapter level yet. The outline so far is just down to what's happening in the first, second, and third act of the respective stories.


----------



## Penpilot (Jul 21, 2017)

I use scene-sequel format as the foundation to my scenes.

Jim Butcher on scenes & sequels: icefallpress

Once I know if a scene is...errr... a scene or a sequel, I sometimes make a few pointform notes as to elements I want to add into the section and maybe how I want things to unfold. Other times, all I have is the scene-sequel elements when I start and develop the rest on the fly. For clairity sake you can think of scene-sequel as action and reaction scenes. 

It's a simple method but it gets more complex when you have to deal with multiple plots. So you'll have sections where you deal with multiple scene-sequels from different plots. It can get tricky when that happens, but I find it's a great way to ensure that each section is advancing plots thus advancing story, so you don't end up with sections that don't really do anything.


----------



## DeathtoTrite (Jul 21, 2017)

Previously, I've done broad strokes outlines. I'm trying something a bit different with a scene-by-scene, hyper-detailed outline, so that I see everything that happens to the characters like a movie in my mind, then actually writing is just about effective prose.


----------



## A. E. Lowan (Jul 21, 2017)

We are hard-core outliners. I can't write a word unless I know where I'm going, and for that I need a detailed outline at my side. Basically, we pre-write the book in a loose three act format and then I get in there and draft it all out. The outline for _Faerie Rising_ was 14 pages, single spaced, and I found during the drafting that the tail end was a little too vague. In an attempt to remedy this, the outline for our WIP, the sequel _Ties of Blood and Bone_, has overshot that in Act I.

We don't do Roman numerals or anything like this. We sit down and write out what happens in present tense, paragraph form, often with important dialogue chunks here and there. Of course, none of this is set in stone and the characters change things all the time, no matter how detailed we are at the outset. It's all only guidelines.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 21, 2017)

@A.E.Lowan: That sounds a lot like what I'm doing currently. I'm finding that it frees up the brainstorming juices without a corresponding need to make the prose pretty and presentable or an "official" story. It's a lot like pantsing a first draft, just not calling it a draft and really not even trying to make a real first draft, at least during this outlining process.


----------



## Nimue (Jul 22, 2017)

Really good stuff…. It’s gonna take me a while to reply to everything, but I’d like to.  This thread is definitely open to discussion of all kinds of outlining, but I’ll go ahead and clarify where I’m at with this project, if that brings out more specific advice: (And to just talk through it for myself.)


I’m working with an idea that’s been fermenting for a year and a half and that I wrote 30k on before crashing, so outlines focused developing initial ideas, i.e. the Snowflake Method, are a little less relevant. (Although now that I say that, I do have another project that’s been languishing without much of a plot at all…)
After that first flash of inspiration, I promised myself I’d sit down and write a detailed outline.  I certainly began one...and then the story was too bright and tantalizing and I jumped in writing.  Burned out in scene-disappointment and next-scene-uncertainty right around where that outline left off.  Hmmm.
One of the big problems that I’m trying to resolve is not paying enough attention to the middle, transitional scenes, the meat of arcs.  In my head and in my notes, this is glossed over in favor of the big momentous stuff.  I’m hoping a scene-level outline will force me to run through it all and figure out the smaller moving parts.
Almost needless to say, I know my story will change from the outlines, wriggle sideways, metamorphose.  I have a lot of anchor points, but nothing’s set in stone.  It’s just that, as a very slow and easily-discouraged writer, I’m hoping to use a detailed outline to figure out some of the first-draft problems I would (and already have) run into.



Aurora said:


> I don't outline so can't give advice there. However, learning story structure is invaluable and basically what plotting is designed to help you do: construct a proper story with plot points, pinch points, climax, etc. Shawn Coyne's Story Grid is chewy and complex but has been very helpful in understanding the finer details of scene construction and beyond. If I could recommend anything, it would be this one and also Libbie Hawker's Take Off Your Pants, which was highly recommended in my author group so I had to try it out and was pleasantly surprised. Hope this helps.


I’ve heard both of those recommended before--I’ll definitely take a look.  Could use some serious exploration of the structure concepts.



Michael K. Eidson said:


> The exact nature of the resolution will be in flux until I write it, because if I were to _decide_ precisely how the story will be resolved, I will lose interest in _writing_ it. Yes, I could still force myself to write a precisely mapped-out ending, but I'd not have the same excitement about writing it, the same desire to see how everything turns out, and so the lack of excitement would probably show in the writing.


This is fascinating to me because I think I’m the opposite as a writer.  I could know how every scene turns and ends (and I hope to do just that) and that wouldn't diminish my excitement--what keeps me going is the joy of inhabiting the world and the characters’ heads, making all the detail and emotion and dialogue concrete.  For me it’s not about the suspense, but about the experience.  I also re-read books a dozens of times, to be sure.



Michael K. Eidson said:


> For a list of plot points and pinch points and at what points they might occur in your story, I believe there are some threads on these forums that discuss them. You can also find a convenient list at How to Calculate Your Book's Length Before Writing - Helping Writers Become Authors.


This is really helpful and concise, thank you.  I’ve been reading K.M. Weiland’s blog and she’s great for where I’m at right now.  I don’t know if I had seen that particular post, but my reaction reading it was literally:  “Huh. _Huh._”  Because, looking at my rough outline, I have all of those points, roughly where she places them, although I never designed the plot around an act structure, just what felt right. (Particularly now that I’ve given the beginning more room to breathe, which it badly needed).  Had everything divided into four “Books” even, corresponding to her act chunks.   I’ll absolutely keep this plot-point spread in mind as I watch for bloat and pacing problems, which I’m prone to.



skip.knox said:


> First and most important, there is not a proper way to outline, save for the one that works. Think of it as multiple ways to outline, out of which you'll find the one for you. Call that one the proper one. (and anyway, "proper" comes from _proprius_, which in Latin means "one's own" so that's exactly the right way to think about it)


Ah, the “proper outline” reference was mostly tongue and cheek--I do mean something more rigorous than what I’ve done in the past, which demonstrably has not worked for me.



skip.knox said:


> So the one I'm trying now is to weave. I have the story idea, which I try to state in a blurb form (under 50 words). I lay out scenes using Scrivener. This gets pretty sloppy because what I think is going to be a scene when I start into it might turn into several, and sometimes a scene is so thin is scarcely can stand. As I get scenes that seem to work, I move them into chapter headings. When I have a bunch (defined as somewhere between one and infinity), I do what you did--I make yet another outline of what I *actually* wrote rather than what I *think* I wrote. And every so often I go back to the top and revise the blurb. I also have side notes on things like theme and character arcs.


When you say you lay out scenes, do you mean you begin writing them, or you start describing them/making notes about them?  What ends up on paper at that point? --That’s what I’m trying to get at in this thread question, I suppose.



skip.knox said:


> It's messy. It's messy even trying to describe it. I don't recommend it to anyone. I contribute this merely to let people know that between Getting Started and Pro Tips lies a vast, steamy swamp of attempts.


That in itself is good advice--try different things. But your method is something that works for you, Skip, seeing how you’ve finished The Novel.  Aspirational, that.  I appreciate it!


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 22, 2017)

@Nimue, I started on _A Child of Great Promise_ with little more than an idea and a character. I wrote some notes in my paper notebook, which I wrote into a page in my Scrivener project entitled Ideas. That's where I keep ideas that are not yet stories. A time came when I felt I was ready to start a new novel, and among the Ideas that crowded around shouting "me, me!" I chose this one.

At that point I began a new Scrivener project. I then on paper started writing out more ideas. At this point, it's more like me talking to myself on paper. Very little structure. I suppose you could call it brainstorming, if you wanted a word for it.

At another point (see how precise this is?), I felt like I had something like a story arc. My hero would begin here, this and that would happen, she would end up there, all with little idea of how to get from A to B to C. But it was enough that I could open that Scrivener project and start making scenes with headings and (bonus points!) actual notes within. Some notes were actual bits of dialog or description, while others were just notes to self. I also began a file listing characters, another for settings, another for theme (I need that to keep me on course), and a few other files with meta information of one sort or another (e.g., terms, magical powers, etc.). 

Then I start writing. I got about 40k in before I ran out of steam and Life crashed the party for a while. What, you may ask, keeps me on track? A couple things. These are things I learned from doing them too late in the _Goblins_ novel: theme and character arc.

Central to this story is Talysse's quest to find out who she really is. I know exactly where I want her to wind up. I know how I'm going to tear her down and I believe I know how she'll find her feet again. That's really the core of the story, so I not only have that written in the Theme page, I return to that regularly when plotting. This happens and that happens and it's wicked cool, but does it move Talysse forward? Or backward? It helps me decide when I'm going off track.

The character page gives me waypoints. That's where I say this has to happen and that has to happen to this particular character. I have pages for all the main characters, and that lets me keep on track with how arcs intersect and complement, villains included.

The settings pages help me order things chronologically and geographically, so impossible things don't happen, or necessary things fail to happen.

So it's not all just one outline. It's more like a framework in multiple dimensions. And yes, sometimes I still get lost and frustrated and think I should do it differently. I am more and more convinced I can't really speak of "my process" until I've written at least three or four novels. Because I have to do it wrong at least that many times!


----------



## Aurora (Jul 22, 2017)

I think outlining can be really helpful for getting a deeper understanding of story structure. It's the tool I used to improve my pantsing.  However, all writers are different and I think the most invaluable thing is understanding how stories are constructed.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 22, 2017)

Aurora said:


> I think outlining can be really helpful for getting a deeper understanding of story structure. [...]



I feel like I'm experiencing this with my current project. I've gone into it with the mindset that I want to figure out how to tell a story, rather than bring out a story I've already envisioned, and it's making a world of difference to me.


----------



## Aurora (Jul 22, 2017)

Svrtnsse said:


> I feel like I'm experiencing this with my current project. I've gone into it with the mindset that I want to figure out how to tell a story, rather than bring out a story I've already envisioned, and it's making a world of difference to me.


I bet it is. Do it enough times and the hang of it will become second nature. One thing I often see new writers struggling with is making words pretty. Books are about stories, characters struggling to solve problems. The words are helpful for ambience, theme, and connection, but they come second place to the story itself. Can't tell you how many writers I've met in recent past who spend years working on words and when push comes to shove they realize they don't know how to write a story.




A. E. Lowan said:


> I can't write a word unless I know where I'm going


I'm just the opposite. I can't write a word if there's an outline in front of me! Call it stage fright.


----------



## Nimue (Jul 22, 2017)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Once the initial chapter is written, I go back through and fill out scene/chapter worksheets that I've developed. They focus on things like _scene structure and strength_, or the _improvement of metaphors and symbolism_. The worksheets help to spark the addition of elements that I've come to believe make scenes engaging & emotionally powerful.
> 
> Often, I wait several weeks after the initial scene draft to do the worksheets. They can be quite time consuming, and I've found a little time allowed for ideas to stew usually helps.
> 
> I know that's off on a bit of a tangent, but I consider my worksheets as part of a dynamic outlining process.


No, this is really good.  I had begun making a list of things to consider for each scene, but some of them are so in-depth that it would be tedious to fill it all out for every scene.  I like the idea of breaking it out into “things necessary to know before going into the scene” and “further development/fine-tuning as applicable”--i.e. your outline vs. your worksheets.  Good to keep in mind that not everything needs to be bundled into a single organizational document--keep some clarity at a glance, maybe.  Was there a resource that inspired these sheets, or are they out of your own experience?



Rkcapps said:


> What is the POV character trying to do in this scene? (the goal)
> Why is she trying to do it? (the motivation for that goal)
> What’s in the way of her doing it? (the conflict)
> What happens if she doesn’t do it? (the stakes)
> ...


These are definitely fairly agreed-upon elements; I have jotted down at the head of my outline the sequence of:

Goal > Conflict > Disaster/Outcome/Yes-But/No-And > Reaction > Dilemma > Decision

The first half of that being the Scene, the second being the Sequel, essentially.  I’m still struggling to keep this structure in the front of my mind.  Deep down, after reading and writing for so long without a solid grasp of structure, I still think of a scene as “something happening” and not also why it’s happening and what comes out of that...



Demesnedenoir said:


> I'm a waypoint writer, which is basically what some others have been pointing out. Some people use more waypoints than others. In my case, the ending is more or less determined, plus some plot points in between. I don't really worry about structure anymore, because it always ends up there for me anymore anyhow. But, studying structure to make sure you use it inherently or on purpose is a good idea.


It’s funny how ingrained structure is.  But what I’ve built in the past was far wobblier than it would have been with conscious, deliberate engineering.  Right now I think my waypoints need to be set apart the width of a dialogue or an expository passage; I can’t trust my sense of direction across a scene, much less a chapter.  Maybe one day.



FifthView said:


> Lately, I've been writing a paragraph or few for each section, summarizing the flow of events and key features. It's more like what you might be telling a friend if you were describing each:
> 
> "X Character wakes up and discovers he's not in bed alone, then remembers that Y had come over for the night. X finds Y attractive, but doesn't feel as strong a bond as Y feels. They talk about a, b, c, as X gets up, dresses, and says he needs to go about his business. He leaves the inn room and runs into Z, learning that d happened during the night; he must now alter his plans to deal with that. He goes down..."
> 
> It's practically like actually writing the chapter, but in summary form, and will need to be turned into the actual narrative later. This helps me to brainstorm better. Before, the simple sentence summary for each section was too bare bones, the things mentioned were too broad, and this slowed me down when writing the scenes and chapters because I'd have to stop to consider many of the other details.


Oh, this is very much how I like to write outlines as well.  Bullet points don’t work for me as well as a descriptive passage does.  Not entirely sure why, but at least it gets me into the writing mindset.  Well.  I say this is how I like to write outlines, but in the past the flaw of those outlines was being much too general, and not being complete.  I’m going to apply this to every scene/section, no matter how small, as you seem to be doing.  No more “things get worse” and “it’s winter now” ffs.  Unless I’m actually jumping that much in the narrative?


----------



## Nimue (Jul 22, 2017)

Svrtnsse said:


> What's new is that very early on in the process - in the first scratch already - I'm adding in the Promise of the story as well as the Wants and Needs of the protagonist. I also do a catchy one-sentence summary for each story and that's also included.


The "promise" is a good conceptualization--Writing Excuses has hammered that home, to be sure.  I feel like I've always kind of thought of what _I_ expect out of a story, and what hooks me, in the positive of "I should put that in", but I need to think more about whether my writing is making the wrong promises...  For example, on the first draft of this story I opened with a battle scene from the POV of the secondary protagonist, but action is in no way the focus of this story, and it really felt wrong.  I've rejiggered the beginning so we open more quietly--though possibly with more tension--with the primary protagonist.

Of course, I'll probably have to rework the beginning a dozen more times.



Penpilot said:


> Jim Butcher on scenes & sequels: icefallpress...It can get tricky when that happens, but I find it's a great way to ensure that each section is advancing plots thus advancing story, so you don't end up with sections that don't really do anything.


That's a great link.  I'm totally on board with scene-sequel, for the reason you say: making sure that the plot keeps moving forward.  Any way to keep from sinking into the bog.



DeathtoTrite said:


> Previously, I've done broad strokes outlines. I'm trying something a bit different with a scene-by-scene, hyper-detailed outline, so that I see everything that happens to the characters like a movie in my mind, then actually writing is just about effective prose.


Yeah, I'm hoping to untangle the pressure of _writing well_ from _figuring out where I'm going_.  It's far easier to make changes and move things around when a scene is just a paragraph in an outline.



A. E. Lowan said:


> We are hard-core outliners. I can't write a word unless I know where I'm going, and for that I need a detailed outline at my side. Basically, we pre-write the book in a loose three act format and then I get in there and draft it all out. The outline for _Faerie Rising_ was 14 pages, single spaced, and I found during the drafting that the tail end was a little too vague. In an attempt to remedy this, the outline for our WIP, the sequel _Ties of Blood and Bone_, has overshot that in Act I.
> 
> We don't do Roman numerals or anything like this. We sit down and write out what happens in present tense, paragraph form, often with important dialogue chunks here and there. Of course, none of this is set in stone and the characters change things all the time, no matter how detailed we are at the outset. It's all only guidelines.


Totally sounds like me.  I need to know what I'm going to write--and having it written down is even better than having it envisioned in my head.  Another vote for summary/narrative outlines: I think it's fair to say that outlines come in a lot more shapes and sizes than the traditional image of bullet points and Roman numerals.



FifthView said:


> @A.E.Lowan: That sounds a lot like what I'm doing currently. I'm finding that it frees up the brainstorming juices without a corresponding need to make the prose pretty and presentable or an "official" story. It's a lot like pantsing a first draft, just not calling it a draft and really not even trying to make a real first draft, at least during this outlining process.


This!  It really is like a first draft in terms of what I'm learning about the story, but with less pressure, hours spent, headaches, bloodshed, wailing, gnashing of teeth...


----------



## Demesnedenoir (Jul 23, 2017)

Musing with a tired brain here, forgive me if it goes astray.

I think everything is about finding the sweet spot. Some folks love outlines. Long ago, I pantsed stuff, and it fell apart, then I'd outline, and freeze up, then I'd pants... an ugly cycle. I stopped writing for many years, lived life, and came back to screenwriting, which is heavily structured. Wham! Lights go off in the head. Yeah, a person kind of knows structure, but until you study the crap out of it, it's this weird fuzziness in the back of the head, and it gave structure to a different type of outlining. It wasn't that my stories didn't contain the structure, I just wasn't getting what I was doing before that. Epiphanies are everything, LOL. Like waypoint writing, how you get there doesn't matter, just make sure you get to your destination, heh heh.

And it's flat amazing what the brain can be trained to do with writing and language on the subconscious level. Big structure, you bet. Stop opening sentences with so many adverbial phrases? Yup. Never even think of worthless -ly adverbs let alone type them? Ayup. Don't use "that" when it's not necessary? Sure. Scene structure? You betcha. 

But I haven't yet been able to train my brain to not babble on forums. Sad.


----------



## Aurora (Jul 23, 2017)

I totally agree about finding the sweet spot. Since this thread is about outlining and I don't want anyone mad at me, I'll just say that my pantsing is structured. My stories still follow plot points but it's become second nature as to what those look like now. After some time, the feel for them has become intuitive and the story moves instinctively towards the next big reveal. This is precisely why I encourage my writing buddies to write a lot because practice is the only way this stuff sinks in. My stories would be shit if I didn't follow story structure for the very reason that I'm a pantser. Making things up as I go along works much better when there are rules to follow like hey, I gotta throw in a pinch point next.


----------



## ThinkerX (Jul 23, 2017)

With me, anymore I do two outlines.  

The first is a very rough 'concept outline' telling the story in about a page worth of paragraphs.  Included with this are notes on the characters, world, and whatnot.  A concept outline can sit in a folder, unread, for a long while.

The second outline is a bit trickier - I put it together just before I start writing.  I envision my tales as a series of 'mental movie clips.'  The purpose of this outline is to keep these 'clips' in sequence and fill in the blanks.  Essentially, its a one paragraph per chapter arrangement, with each scene getting anywhere from 2-3 words to 2-3 sentences.  Each chapter is written in a separate file, and I copy/paste the relevant portion of the primary outline to that chapter to serve as a guide.  Problem is, more clips occur to me as I write, and some of the outlined material doesn't work, so it gets deleted or moved.  Typically, I will redo the outline two or three times over the course of a longer story.

Shorter tales - under about 15,000 words, I either don't outline, or I use the concept outline.  These stories are also all one file.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 23, 2017)

> Typically, I will redo the outline two or three times over the course of a longer story.

A couple of people have mentioned this in passing, but I think it's crucial. You make an outline prior to writing, but the story is almost certainly going to veer off. If you don't return to the outline and revise it, then it's now useless. I suspect for many novice writers this is the point at which they decide outlining is stupid and not for them. Because it's useless!

You have to revisit and revise your outline just as you do the writing itself. First drafts are not final drafts. I've also begun doing the same with a blurb and a summary: write them at the start, and revise them as the story evolves. Blurb, summary, outline, all are simply differing levels of focus.


----------



## Nimue (Jul 25, 2017)

Aurora said:


> One thing I often see new writers struggling with is making words pretty. Books are about stories, characters struggling to solve problems. The words are helpful for ambience, theme, and connection, but they come second place to the story itself. Can't tell you how many writers I've met in recent past who spend years working on words and when push comes to shove they realize they don't know how to write a story.


That’s me, I’m afraid.  I’ve been writing since elementary school, off and on.  And there’s embedded in my brain the idea that I should be able to just sit down and write a book without any study or training.  A little bizarre, upon examination.  And that’s what I tried to do five years ago, when I started writing again in earnest.  It was my first attempt at NaNoWriMo, too, which just reinforced the idea that all I had to do was sit down and write whatever came to mind.

Part of it is the reader’s illusion that everything in a story is there on the surface.  The insidious extremity of that is that everything about a writer’s process is there on the surface: that a writer simply strings word after word of that polished prose together, without struggling or revising or _work_.

Since then, well, there’s been a lot of despair and a few failed projects.  Just smart enough to know there's problems--too dumb to know why, too stubborn to make serious changes.  I recently went through a(nother) long period of bitterly hating my writing and the lumpy stories underneath it.  But this time around, I’m honestly trying to do my research, find stronger tools and better methods.  Of course my writing’s shit right now, but I’m trying to change my mindset from “because I’m a shit writer” to “because I haven't put the work in.”

It’s depressing to still feel like a beginner, that I’ve wasted so much time.  If I’ve been scarce around here, that’s why--I really have no experience, no knowledge to contribute.  “You know nothing, Nimue” &c.  Part of me wishes I hadn’t written as a child/teenager and entrenched myself in these bad habits, that I’d gotten into writing as an adult with a plan and realistic expectations.  Without the baggage.  Likely as not this makes me sound like an idiot--are you really trying to excuse not cracking open a book on story structure until the Year of Our Lord 2017?  But I wanted to express it somehow.  All those mental blocks look so small and stupid when you write them down.

Not that the act of resolution means anything in practice.  I’m still a million miles from finding the end.  But I’m going to try a deep, structure-focused outline for the first time in my life, and maybe that will help.  Thank you guys for your thoughts & suggestions.  I’m certain it will be useful, in jolting my mindset if nothing else.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 25, 2017)

Nimue: I am, in principle, in a similar spot. I've been focusing a lot of my attention on weird little technicalities and quirky details. I do pretty words really well, but I struggle with story. One of the foundations of my current WIP is to take a step away from all that and focus on telling short, simple stories.

I want to make it straight, blunt, and to the point. No subtle nuances. No devious twists. I want to write a plain and simple action adventure story - just to learn the basics. Those basics that I shot a brief glance and then ignored when I started writing.

I don't know for sure that we're the same, or even similar, in that respect. But I too still feel like a beginner, and I know for sure I could have used my time better. I'm trying to "start over" but I think and hope that with the knowledge I've gained so far I will have an easier time obtaining the knowledge I need to get to where I want.


----------



## Aurora (Jul 25, 2017)

Nimue said:


> That’s me, I’m afraid.  I’ve been writing since elementary school, off and on.  And there’s embedded in my brain the idea that I should be able to just sit down and write a book without any study or training.  A little bizarre, upon examination.  And that’s what I tried to do five years ago, when I started writing again in earnest.  It was my first attempt at NaNoWriMo, too, which just reinforced the idea that all I had to do was sit down and write whatever came to mind.
> 
> Part of it is the reader’s illusion that everything in a story is there on the surface.  The insidious extremity of that is that everything about a writer’s process is there on the surface: that a writer simply strings word after word of that polished prose together, without struggling or revising or _work_.
> 
> ...


I hear you, sister. Loud and clear! As someone who also has been writing stories since age 9, trust me when I say that I often thought that all I needed to do was start typing. When manuscript after manuscript was rejected by trad publishers, I gave up for many years until Indie publishing came along. THAT'S when I said to myself I will do this no matter what it takes.

What's it taken? Six years of daily writing, studying, struggling, starting-stopping-deleting, rewrites then giving up on rewrites because I hate them, outlining-pantsing-somewhere-in-between, and on it goes. The main thing has been finding support in professional circles. I wanted to be a professional writer so I started reading blogs, books, articles written by professional Indie authors. I got into Facebook groups, online forums, and kept writing, kept practicing. I heard over and over to trust my gut but study story structure, so I did. It took me some time to write with plot points and get the hang of that, then I left the training wheels behind. After all this time, I can write a book that has solid structure but it's taken me a long, long time.

Writing is an artform, a craft that requires tremendous sacrifice. It's all worth it. As of 2 days ago, I self-published my 6th title THIS year. That's because I have a lot of support from my family, which is unusual for many writers, but they let me write. I'm encouraged to write full time even though my earnings are meager. This is what I've wanted to do all of my life so I have worked very hard to get my craft to a level that I believe is publishable (and editors, betas, etc also agree is publishable). But a funny thing has happened. I've learned that books are about story, not pretty fancy words. A lot of authors I know write simple prose and their books sell. Readers just want story. I promise you, that's all they give a shit about.

So as someone who has been there and is on the other side of painfully realizing you don't know story: KEEP AT IT. It will will will pay off one day when you've got a back list of titles to your name. Writing marketable books means learning tropes, GENRE, and what readers expect out of those two things in fantasy. It means learning the difference between epic, sword and sorcery, dark and romantic fantasy, between paranormal and urban and historical fantasy. It means reading books that inspire you and copying what they do so you can learn. It means being willing to not want to stand out with 'unique genre breaking stories because you want to be different. As a newer author, you want to fit in and get readers to trust you. 

All of these things will help you become a vastly different artist and author. So to recap:

-learn genre
-learn tropes
-learn plot points
-stop giving so much of a shit about pretty words and focus on character development, plot, and how setting ties into all of that
**Have FUN**

Best of luck to you, Nimue.


----------



## pmmg (Jul 25, 2017)

I have never used an outline for any story I tried to write. I think I fall into the category of waypoint writer, but I don't strongly consider it. I am strongly considering doing an outline for my current WIP though. I feel I am spending too much effort trying to eek out the next scene and I am wondering if more definition of where it was all going would help. So, it is on my todo list.

Reading the above, I would have just popped up a sentence or two, but I think I may try what Fifth is suggesting.


----------



## pmmg (Jul 25, 2017)

Aurora said:


> As of 2 days ago, I self-published my 6th title THIS year. That's because I have a lot of support from my family, which is unusual for many writers, but they let me write.



This I think is among the most important. I don't feel this in my own circumstance, in fact I feel those around me are an impediment to writing. It would be a lot different, I feel, if that were not the case.


----------



## ThinkerX (Jul 26, 2017)

Nimue said:


> That’s me, I’m afraid.  I’ve been writing since elementary school, off and on.  And there’s embedded in my brain the idea that I should be able to just sit down and write a book without any study or training.  A little bizarre, upon examination.  And that’s what I tried to do five years ago, when I started writing again in earnest.  It was my first attempt at NaNoWriMo, too, which just reinforced the idea that all I had to do was sit down and write whatever came to mind.
> 
> Part of it is the reader’s illusion that everything in a story is there on the surface.  The insidious extremity of that is that everything about a writer’s process is there on the surface: that a writer simply strings word after word of that polished prose together, without struggling or revising or _work_.
> 
> ...



You do yourself a disservice.  I have been very impressed with the quality of your 'Top Scribe' entries, and believe two or three of them to be of publishable quality.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 26, 2017)

@Nimue, I wrote my first story at twenty-two. I finished my first novel at sixty-five. I do often think I mis-spent the years between, but it's only an emotional pang ("only" - hah!). The plain fact is, it took me until about sixty to become a person *able* to write a novel. There was growing up to do, history to learn, and other kinds of writing projects in between that shaped the novelist. Most particularly, doing other kinds of writing all the way to completion, to learn what writing really means.

What you are feeling and going through, they're quite common. I won't say don't despair, because despair comes upon us unbidden. Rather, I'll say when despair comes, know that it will leave again, and the trick is to keep writing even when discouraged.


----------



## Michael K. Eidson (Jul 27, 2017)

Nimue said:


> This is fascinating to me because I think I’m the opposite as a writer.  I could know how every scene turns and ends (and I hope to do just that) and that wouldn't diminish my excitement--what keeps me going is the joy of inhabiting the world and the characters’ heads, making all the detail and emotion and dialogue concrete.  For me it’s not about the suspense, but about the experience.  I also re-read books a dozens of times, to be sure.



Other reasons why I like leaving the ending of the novel in flux is because it allows it to happen more organically, and I'm going to be thinking about all the possible other endings anyway. I'm writing the last 30% of my WIP now, and as I write, I see other options. I feel the need to address every conceived possibility for a resolution in some way, even if it is just one sentence that rules it out. If I can think of it, some readers will think of it, and I want to limit the reader critiques of "why didn't they just resolve it this way or that way?" I feel that having too narrow a perspective of how the ending should be would give me tunnel vision.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith (Jul 27, 2017)

Nimue said:


> No, this is really good.  I had begun making a list of things to consider for each scene, but some of them are so in-depth that it would be tedious to fill it all out for every scene.  I like the idea of breaking it out into “things necessary to know before going into the scene” and “further development/fine-tuning as applicable”--i.e. your outline vs. your worksheets.  Good to keep in mind that not everything needs to be bundled into a single organizational document--keep some clarity at a glance, maybe.  Was there a resource that inspired these sheets, or are they out of your own experience?


Sorry for the late reply, Nimue. I took the family on a little vacation.

Anyway, my worksheets have been developing for a few years, so the sources stretch beyond attributable memory. However, the most recent contributors would be K.M. Weiland (on structure), Donald Maass (Emotion), & Mel Helitzer (Humor writing & Metaphor). 

The first draft is a detailed outline, in many ways. Once I get that down, I can know what works and doesn't, what needs  cut or changed...at least, that's the process I've progressed into. Now that I'm on the 2nd draft (which is vastly different from the first), I have a better idea of story and characters. I am now using these worksheets to make the scenes more powerful on several levels: Prose quality, metaphor, symbolism, descriptive choices, emotional impact, etc.


----------



## Nimue (Jul 27, 2017)

ThinkerX said:


> You do yourself a disservice.  I have been very impressed with the quality of your 'Top Scribe' entries, and believe two or three of them to be of publishable quality.


That's very kind, Thinker... Let me go further and say that the short-story challenges held by you, T. Allen Smith, Phil Overby, and Legendary Sidekick (I think that's everybody) have been a part of this sorta-epiphany, because writing those stories, finishing them, and getting feedback that said hey, this is readable, this works (on some level), here's what I got out of it, made me consider that maybe it wasn't just that I was a flake with no coherent stories to tell, it was more that...you can hold an entire short story in your head, but you can't do that for a novel.  You can't just envision a few scenes, get the gist, and start writing, which was my "method"... and that produced some decent shorts (well. You wouldn't think a 5k short could have pacing problems, but boy do I have something for you) but failed again and again to get anywhere with a novel.  The problem might not be in the batter, it might be in the cooking.  Eew.  Oozy undercooked story batter.



skip.knox said:


> What you are feeling and going through, they're quite common. I won't say don't despair, because despair comes upon us unbidden. Rather, I'll say when despair comes, know that it will leave again, and the trick is to keep writing even when discouraged.


I certainly don't mean to imply that this is in any way unusual...in fact, that's part of it.  That all this advice and all these messages have always been out there, but I've taken it the wrong way, been too stubbornly set in my rut to consider it.  But, tangent to what you're saying, I haven't been in the right place to hear it.  Makes you wish for a shortcut for character development...  I suppose reading the advice of better writers and editors is the closest thing to.


>More to the point of what I'm actually meant to be talking about:  I read Libby Hawker's _Take Off Your Pants_ and found it a thought-provoking read.  I don't know that I'll be using her format verbatim, but I've always had trouble with character arcs and conflict (two thing you may recognize as being Kind of Important for a Story) and her advice was very helpful for that.  Plenty of revelations, particularly about the flaws and arc of my much-neglected secondary MC.  I've written out loose outlines using her points for the arcs of both MCs for my current project--also did this for Weiland's structure format, which seems a little more applicable to this project and comes with delicious solid math.  Revelation from that: yes, the beginning-middle is soggy, and needs some serious snipping.  So far, this has been less about altering the major plot points and more about figuring out how to _frame_ them, how to handle the conflicts and motivations, which I'm hoping will point me in far clearer directions during scene-writing.

Next is Coyne, I think, and then probably Maass. I've tried him before but didn't get past the obligatory "selling you on the method" beginning and into the meat of it.  As this seems to be universal with writing advice books, I should probably give him another chance.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 28, 2017)

I learned a long time ago that advice not only has to be good, it has to be timely. That is, the advice I found useless at twenty was invaluable at age forty. And vice versa. And so on. So it really is worth keeping all those guides and tips and essays, and to return to them now and again. Because one thing I know: you just never know.


----------



## ThinkerX (Jul 28, 2017)

> That's very kind, Thinker... Let me go further and say that the short-story challenges held by you, T. Allen Smith, Phil Overby, and Legendary Sidekick (I think that's everybody) have been a part of this sorta-epiphany, because writing those stories, finishing them, and getting feedback that said hey, this is readable, this works (on some level), here's what I got out of it, made me consider that maybe it wasn't just that I was a flake with no coherent stories to tell, it was more that...you can hold an entire short story in your head, but you can't do that for a novel. You can't just envision a few scenes, get the gist, and start writing, which was my "method"... and that produced some decent shorts (well. You wouldn't think a 5k short could have pacing problems, but boy do I have something for you) but failed again and again to get anywhere with a novel. The problem might not be in the batter, it might be in the cooking. Eew. Oozy undercooked story batter.



I used to write that way...until I came to this site.  Started lots of stories, usually wrote myself into a corner.  Very few 'finished,' and then only rough drafts.  But, after participating in most of the 'Iron Pen' challenge series (among others) I learned, bit by bit.


----------



## Phyphor (Jul 28, 2017)

I bought a book on the 'Snowflake' method for planning out a story. Followed the instructions meticulously, and spent about two weeks planning the plot, structure, working out characters, etc.

When I finally got to writing it, my main character's age and occupation had changed by the end of the first scene. By the end of the chapter, I didn't even recognise him, and the story had gone off in its own direction.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 28, 2017)

I regard pre-writing outlines as just another form of thinking. I have stacks of notebooks with (surprise!) notes in them. Maybe 30% of it is actual writing--dialog, narrative--while the rest is notes, world-building, and me whining to the Universe. I don't regard any of it as wasted motion. Probably the least useful measure of its worth is whether or not the material winds up in the final version of the story. The notes are necessary because I have to think about the story in some form. I cannot simply sit down with my mind as blank as the paper. Well, I can, and often have. I get doodles. Oodles of doodles.

IOW, I *expect* my story will go off the rails because those over there weren't rails after all. The rails were over here.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 28, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> I regard pre-writing outlines as just another form of thinking. I have stacks of notebooks with (surprise!) notes in them. Maybe 30% of it is actual writing--dialog, narrative--while the rest is notes, world-building, and me whining to the Universe. I don't regard any of it as wasted motion. Probably the least useful measure of its worth is whether or not the material winds up in the final version of the story. The notes are necessary because I have to think about the story in some form. I cannot simply sit down with my mind as blank as the paper. Well, I can, and often have. I get doodles. Oodles of doodles.
> 
> IOW, I *expect* my story will go off the rails because those over there weren't rails after all. The rails were over here.



I expect my story to stay on the rails, but that's mainly because I spend a lot of time laying them. I'm on the third phase of the outline now (which will have two passes on the story), and while there are things being changed, they're smaller than they were in the previous phase.

The goal is to get the rails sturdy enough that writing the actual story will be more about putting in pretty words than about the actual story.

That said, there are a lot of notes an dead ends that have been explored and discarded along the way.


----------



## Aurora (Jul 28, 2017)

So if an outline is getting several passes because it's not perfect enough, when does the actual writing take place? When does the book get finished? Given that stories often take on lives of their own and also need revising, how is it at all effective to write an outline that will change numerous times before the actual book is even started? I'm just trying to understand how that is an efficient way of learning how to write a better book.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 28, 2017)

Good question. 

(Edit: "good question" is short for: I'm glad you brought it up, I haven't really thought about it and it's really just what felt right)

So, the first pass of the outline is very rough, just a few sentences. Once I'd done that for all the stories I went over them and wrote a slightly more detailed version of what each story is about.

Second phase I got into a bit more detail. I used the original descriptions to do a better pitch sentence. I defined the promise of each story, and I added notes about character wants and needs for the protagonist.
After that I split each story up into three parts/acts, defining how each story starts and ends and what happens in between. Once done with that I wrote a description of what's happening in each act - kinda like I did for each story in the previous phase.
This is also where I did a list of tropes included in each story, but I'm not actually done with that yet but have skipped ahead to the next phase.

I'm now on the third phase. In this, I'm setting up waypoints that the story will have to pass in order to achieve what it needs to tell, and then I'm listing the scenes the story needs for getting through the waypoints. I also add notes about important side characters that haven't already been mentioned.
The next pass of this phase is to go over the list of scenes for each story to try and define in more detail what I want each scene to achieve (other than progressing the events of the story - stuff like character development etc).

Once this is done I expect I'll start the actual _writing_ - one scene at a time. Before writing a scene I expect I'll do a brief outline of it so I have an idea of what's happening. If there's any conversation happening in the scene I'll write out the lines the characters say first, and then put the conversation into the scene later.

My thinking is that in this way I'll get a good idea of what the building blocks of my story are, and I hope to figure out what's important to the story. Consequently I hope to find out what bits are unimportant and that I've just kept in because I'm emotionally attached to them in some way.

I've used similar methods in the past, but this is the first time I'm focusing this much on identifying the various elements of the story and what purpose they serve to it. Previously I've mostly just gone over the story repeatedly in more and more detail until I've had a good enough outline to start making prose from.

Does that answer your question?


----------



## Michael K. Eidson (Jul 28, 2017)

Aurora said:


> So if an outline is getting several passes because it's not perfect enough, when does the actual writing take place? When does the book get finished? Given that stories often take on lives of their own and also need revising, how is it at all effective to write an outline that will change numerous times before the actual book is even started? I'm just trying to understand how that is an efficient way of learning how to write a better book.



I can't speak to this particular process, because I don't do quite what you've described. But, the efficiency of a process isn't always the point. Just finding a process that works for the individual writer is sometimes the point. As the writer improves, she can modify her processes. But sometimes the problem is finding something that works _now_. Because something that works is infinitely more efficient than something that doesn't work. To each her own.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 29, 2017)

Svrtnsse said:


> I expect my story to stay on the rails, [...]



Okay, so maybe this is a bit of a strong statement.

I did explain my method in my previous post, but I think I'd like to add a little more to it. I think the terminology probably confuses things too.

One way I think about my outline is like I'm designing the story. I'm plotting it out and I'm tweaking scenes/characters before I actually write them. So far it's worked out pretty well, and I feel like I've improved a bit just from doing this. 

Once the entire story is laid out is when I'll start what I refer to as writing. This is when I begin working on the text that will go in the book. Hopefully at this stage there won't be any more major changes needed to the story. To say I expect there not to be anything may be a bit strong. Sure, there will be tweaks that need doing and stuff that needs adjusting, but the ambition is that these will be minor thing that don't effect how the scene/chapter/story will end in a significant way.

One impression I get is that I may be using the words/names differently to what others do. When someone's talking about their first or second draft I may still be referring to a phase of my outline.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 29, 2017)

Aurora said:


> So if an outline is getting several passes because it's not perfect enough, when does the actual writing take place? When does the book get finished? Given that stories often take on lives of their own and also need revising, how is it at all effective to write an outline that will change numerous times before the actual book is even started? I'm just trying to understand how that is an efficient way of learning how to write a better book.



For me, the outline is for more than discovering structure. It's also for discovering details.

Typically, I'm great at picturing the larger, more abstract details, when brainstorming a story. I also usually have a good first feel of the general structure. But darn those smaller details! Outlining each chapter and the scenes forces me to consider details ... in more detail. 

An example from my WIP: I knew my MC has two much older brothers with families of their own, and I knew that the son of one of these brothers (the MC's nephew) was going to play a role, but that's all I had until I started outlining. When I began outlining, I realized I needed to go into more depth and create a family tree, find names for all my MC's siblings (turns out, there's an older sister too), all his siblings' spouses, all his nieces and nephews–and how those marriages connected the MC's own family to other prominent families in the city where the story starts.

For me, the problem wasn't knowing the most significant, direct plot-relevant details. It was the fact that, having already considered those details, I'd neglected finding these other details. I'd put that off. But when I go to write, I need those details in advance or I'll end up hitting walls. I spent some hours creating that family tree and finding names for all these other families and family members; better to brainstorm that in advance than have to come up with names and immediate social structure (various families of the city) on the spot. Once I have these details, my writing flows better and I also feel I have a little more flexibility. If I'd started writing first then paused in the midst of it to find these details, I'd be more likely to either stop for long periods (to find the _right_ details) or I'd jump on the first ideas that popped into my head in order to keep writing at a good pace.

This may not be how it works for others, but for me...yeah. I also have a personal negative reaction to the idea that 80% of the _details_ I use in my prose might need to be completely overhauled later. Why bother writing those sections?  This is different than rewriting the prose itself, working with the grammar, syntax, sentence structures and the like, which I'm fine doing.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 29, 2017)

FifthView said:


> [...]Once I have these details, my writing flows better and I also feel I have a little more flexibility. [...]



Going off on a tangent here, but I believe this also works with world building. If I'm more familiar with how the world works and how things are connected underneath the surface I'm able to make better use of it in the story. It makes more intuitive sense to me, and I don't have as much of an urge to explain all the little nitty gritty mechanics.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 29, 2017)

Svrtnsse said:


> Going off on a tangent here, but I believe this also works with world building. If I'm more familiar with how the world works and how things are connected underneath the surface I'm able to make better use of it in the story. It makes more intuitive sense to me, and I don't have as much of an urge to explain all the little nitty gritty mechanics.



I've also wondered if using the outlining process to world build helps to prevent world builder's disease.  I could find family trees for every character in a story—or only those trees I discover I need to know as I'm outlining! Same with places, cultural markers, and so forth.


----------



## Aurora (Jul 30, 2017)

Suppose I just enjoy discovering the details as I go along. It's what makes writing fun for me. I often start with basic ideas: definitely characters, setting, and conflict.

I usually have impressions of scenes as well. Some stories bake in my head for weeks or months before I write them. If I don't feel enough of a connection with it, then I write something else. 

The majority of my 'outlining' or story development happens off the keyboard. When I get stuck, I take a break and go back when I've thought things through more.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 30, 2017)

Now this is even more off on a tangent, but I'm amusing myself by thinking of various metaphors for different kinds of outlining/plotting/pantsing.

For myself I'm thinking of the story as a big block of stone and I'm chiselling away at it to bring out the story that's hidden inside of it.

For a more explorational process it might be a bit like climbing a tree. You start on the ground at the bottom and you know you want to get as high as you can. You start climbing and as you get higher, the options for getting even higher become ever fewer, and eventually you reach the top, or a branch from which you can't go any further.


----------



## skip.knox (Jul 30, 2017)

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow

This is true for the actual writing. It's true even when I outline because once I'm at the keyboard, or pen in hand, the outline is not floating before my eyes like a HUD. It's still just me and the Great White Blank.


----------



## Demesnedenoir (Jul 30, 2017)

That's why I write on a black screen with white print, heh heh. It's like the whole book is already done, I just need to uncover the redacted parts.



skip.knox said:


> “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
> 
> This is true for the actual writing. It's true even when I outline because once I'm at the keyboard, or pen in hand, the outline is not floating before my eyes like a HUD. It's still just me and the Great White Blank.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Jul 31, 2017)

Demesnedenoir said:


> That's why I write on a black screen with white print, heh heh. It's like the whole book is already done, I just need to uncover the redacted parts.



This works really well when writing in dark environments. Less strain on the eyes.


----------



## FifthView (Jul 31, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” –E.L. Doctorow
> 
> This is true for the actual writing. It's true even when I outline because once I'm at the keyboard, or pen in hand, the outline is not floating before my eyes like a HUD. It's still just me and the Great White Blank.



For me, starting with a blank page when I begin an outline is like beginning that foggy journey.

But it's a little more like making the journey on foot through terrain that is always covered in fog, with a flashlight. After I've completed the journey, then my next journey across the same terrain will be easier because I'll already have so many of the landmarks and even smaller elements of the terrain mapped out. The second trip will go more smoothly than the first.


----------



## Heliotrope (Jul 31, 2017)

Oh man Nimue! 

First, I'm so glad to see your name around here again, I missed you  

Second, I think it's pretty common to go through this. For me it happened around two or three years ago. 

Third, I'll tell you what helped me, and direct you to some resources, but please understand, like Skip says, it's different for everyone. 

Ok, so this is my method. 

First I start with the snowflake method, outlined here: 

How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method

This means I start by writing out my basic premise in a single sentence. These past few weeks I've been camping across Canada with my family and had some ideas for a non fantasy, more personal literary drama I want to work on when we get back. 

When using the Snowflake method I like to start with a killer title as well as the premise statement. 

*A Silent Echo*

_When their canoe capsizes on an unfamiliar river, a detached mother and her autistic daughter struggle through the Canadian wilderness to reconnect with civilization, but end up reconnecting with each other.  _ 

It doesn't have to be fancy. Just concise. Lol. As I believe stories are inherently about emotion and growth, I try to pin point the emotional core of the story early and and illustrate it in the premise statement. 

After that I can start plotting. 

I like using the three act structure, outlined here: 

Fiction University: How to Plot With the Three-Act Structure

And I do it using notecards, as illustrated in Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat" book. 

Once I have the basic plot points figured out I start drafting. Drafting is like filling in the outlines, bit by bit. Layer by layer. Adding in more and more details with each subsequent draft.


----------



## Heliotrope (Jul 31, 2017)

I just read the entire thread and I think that Lakins Twelve Pillars of Novel Construction might be helpful for you. Here is her website

Four Corner Pillars of Novel Construction | Live Write Thrive


----------



## Helen (Aug 1, 2017)

Nimue said:


> Both a specific and a general question, I suppose.  How do you guys write outlines, and how _does_ one write a proper outline, anyway?
> 
> I’ve known for a long time that I’m a plotter--pantsing gives me an utter mess, fulminating with subplots, and the monster’s appearance by the cold light of day stops me writing in my tracks--but I’ve never really written a thorough, scene-by-scene outline.  Vague plot structure notation and pages and pages of stream-of-consciousness maunderings, yes.  Mostly holding everything in my head like someone serving soup from a sieve, yes.  *I’m looking for better organizational tools.*  At this point I’ve gone through a brief outline, maybe a sentence per scene or chapter chunk, and it’s already untangled my chronology, simplified character roles, and given me a clearer image of the story as a whole.
> 
> Any advice for the next step of outlining at the scene level?  I’ve been listening to Writing Excuses and reading a few writer blogs, so I have a vague idea of noting motivation, conflict, outcome, etc.  But it would be nice to have more resources at hand, and to hear if there are ways of approaching this that have worked well for you.



Hero's Journey.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Aug 7, 2017)

Something happened yesterday that made me want to come back to this thread. It relates to how many writers who don't outline (or don't do it in detail) talk about the excitement of exploring the story to see where it leads to. 

The same kind of thing doesn't happen when outlining. I already know how my story is going to end and as far as the plot goes there are no surprises waiting for me. No big ones. The story still has a lot of secrets left to reveal though. There are plenty of issues that I don't yet have a detailed solution for and that I only know need to be addressed, but not how.

Yesterday I began analysing the list of scenes for the first part of my story. I moved a few of them around and I wrote little descriptions of things that I wanted each scene to achieve. So far so good. I'd done some thinking about it already and most of the stuff I did I'd already planned for in my head.

Then a scene I'd added in as a filler where I could drop a bit of background information shows up. I'd summed it up like this:


> 8. Roy at home. Thinking. Looking at his things.


Nothing remarkable. Kind of dull even, and at first I couldn't remember why I'd put it in and I thought maybe I'd just cut it out completely. I'd had enough background information already, hadn't I?

That's when the magic happened. What if, in his apartment, Roy has his one and only photo of Toini (that's the Woman of the story (capital W)). It's on his bedside table, and it shows him, Toini, and Toini's sister Paivi. All three of them are sitting on the bench outside Paivi's pub and it's on the very same day that Paivi took over the pub and became it's new owner. Toini's just back in town on military leave and she's still wearing his uniform. 

This is how Roy remembers Toini - happy and smiling in her uniform. He didn't bring any photos with him when he left, and this one was sent to him in the mail after Toini died.

See?

This showed up in a minor filler scene that I first considered cutting out. It wasn't planned, but it's a major discovery and it's going to be useful throughout the rest of the story. In the next part of the series I'd planned for Roy to go back to his apartment but I wasn't entirely clear on his reason for going back - getting a change of spare clothes or some cash was my initial idea, but it felt a bit weak. Picking up his last photo of the love of his life seems like a much better reason. Great sentimental value.

I'll also be able to use the photo in more situations in later stories. It'll be a reason to remind readers about what's going on, and it'll be a reason for Alene (Roy's traveling companion) to ask about Toini.

In this way, there's still a lot of discoveries about the story to be made even when outlining. It's not necessarily discovery through exploration, but it's still a kind of discovery. 

Perhaps it's a bit like engineering? You know what you have and where you need to be, and you know how to get there, but the way is a bit clunky and cumbersome, and then all of a sudden you have a stroke of genius and come up with a beautiful solution and you write it in the margin of the book for generations of mathematicians to try and figure out... no, wait, that was something else.


----------



## Addison (Aug 9, 2017)

I outline in stages. Usually three but, if it's really being a jerk, four. First I blurb the #%@ out of the story. From beginning to end I blurb the story, what happens to who, why etc. 

Then I take that blurb, highlight part that I like, things that are integral (foreshadowing, character revelation/growth etc) then I use those parts and start at the beginning to make a Story Tree. I start with the opening scene, that first paragraph or such and I extend at least three branches. Each branch is a different outcome. I write the most likely- the one a reader can see coming- the others are plausible (maybe) yet less likely. I continue the process for a few pages, working off the pieces I took from the blurbs and I highlight the parts I like. The I take those parts and rewrite my story's blurbs with those pieces. 

Finally I, having the Blurb neatly typed and double spaced with margins of AT LEAST one inch, go back and outline by act. I take a red pen and find where ACt 1 ends, Act 2, ACt 3 And Act 4 (I use the 4 Act system) Then I outline bychapter. In my book Chapters can be any length. Five pages, fifteen, the length is irrelevant. What is relevant is if the chapter can answer a core question. I look at my tree and find the questions and, if none exist, I write between the lines to refine for definition. The questions could be "Will Hero dodge punishment?" "Will Hero pass polygraph?" "Where will Hero wake up?" etc. If I have an answer of a flat "Yes" or "No" at the beginning of the story, or too many in a row in the middle, then they need work. Each question is titled "Chapter 1" and so forth. 

The part that I only do if I can't get it going past a certain point is I fast forward and start the outline from the ending. Sounds weird but it's effective. I go to the resolution and I look at where my characters are, what they've learned, what they've resolved, what they've survived and so forth. I work backwards to find how they got there. First in the blurb sense, "clear their names, vanquish evil person, find lair etc". Then I work backwards, looking at the end and what little I have of the beginning and find the best path for the story to get Z and A to connect. 

Hope this helped. Happy Writing. :-D


----------



## Svrtnsse (Aug 10, 2017)

Time for another update here. 

The plan for the current stage of my outlining process was to analyse each scene to determine how it fits into the story and what purpose it has. It started out nicely and I did pretty well in that regard. However, over time this all changed and instead of what I'd planned on doing I just wrote a basic outline of what happened in the scene.

This isn't necessarily bad, but it's not what I'd planned on and it skips over a step I'd considered to be important. To get around this I went back a bit until I'm at the stage where the analysis comments began to change into outlines (roughly). Here, I added the keywords _Establish_ and _Reiterate_ to the end of each descriptions. I used these to list the new things that are established in the scene, and the things that I've already mentioned that is repeated.

It's not much, but it helps me keep organised.


----------



## Deleted member 4265 (Aug 10, 2017)

Well I'm not really an outliner. I tried to be for years, but it ended up doing more harm to my story than good. However I do put a bit of work into planning before I start writing. 

These are the important questions I should know the answer to if I don't want my story to fail. They are:
Who is my protagonist?
What is their goal?
What specifically is their plan to achieve said goal?
What specifically is the antagonist doing to prevent protagonist from achieving said goal?

The third question is the hardest for me because it has to be very specific. I might have a story idea like 'the hero has to defeat the Evil Overlord by finding a special magic sword that's been lost for a thousand years'. That states his goal pretty clearly but it doesn't tell me how he's going to achieve it. The most obvious answer is he's going to search for the sword, but then I have to decide how he's going to decide where to start searching. Maybe he goes to its last known whereabouts and finds a clue (ideally one that could somehow have been overlooked by other people looking for said sword during the last thousand years). Maybe he finds out that the sword was buried with a great king in ancient magic ruins. So what's he do now? Maybe he assembles a team of archaeologists equipped to excavate magic ruins and a guide and heads into the desert.

I think you get the point, but basically its a step by step plan of how your protagonist's plan for dealing with the conflict. It has to account for all the things your protagonist thinks might happen. So if my hero's worried that the Evil Overlord is aware/will become aware of his plans, I would have to come up with a plan that accounts for that. This is a way to both make sure your character has some idea of what they're doing and develops character. The plan doesn't have to be a good plan (your character might be arrogant enough to think he can take on the evil overlord and all his minions single-highhandedly). This isn't a plot (unless you want to write a very boring book with no suspense) The plot comes from throwing a wrench in said plans. I usually just start writing and see what I come up with, but you could plot this.

There are also a few other things I have to know. For example I need some basic rules for the world. I never make complete magic systems, that's not my style, but if my plot hinges on a particular person staying alive for example only one person can wield the magic sword I need to know if magic can bring people back from the dead and if it can whether or not my characters know that it can. Likewise if my plot hinges on the use of an important object like the sword I need to know what exactly the sword can do. I need to know up front whether or not the magic sword is the only way to destroy the big bad or if another way does exist albeit one much less desirable and once again if an alternative way does exist do my characters know about it at the story's start?

Then I go and do all that for the antagonist, although I can usually get away with a little less depth on their side since for dramatic purposes the antagonist is probably going to have a lot less setbacks than the protagonist which means less contingency plans.

Sorry this got a bit longer than I intended, but I hope it helps.


----------

