Outlining/Planning

[Philip Overby]

Well, I just outlined my novel for November already. If I follow the outline mostly, it looks like it might actually be decent. Lots of rising and falling action. False hope. Drama. This actually seems like my most promising Nano yet. I highly recommend anyone who plans on doing this, try to plan/outline ahead of time because it makes the process a lot smoother. You don't have to follow it completely of course, but it doesn't hurt to have a guide when you have to write 50,000 words in one month. I'm pumped!

 

[JCFarnham]

It's my belief that we all outline differently. For example, I'd say I have an outline done for my Nano novel, but someone else might say that because I haven't written it out blow by blow and saved it in five places I haven't outlines properly. I'm sure by the time November rolls around I'll find out which side of the line I'm on, but at the very least I know what my goals are for the characters within the novel.

Outline characters however is something I haven't done enough of. I'm having a lot of trouble with my MCs motivation for example, and am wondering whether she should be cut completely [least likely as the place she fills is need as a foil if anything] or whether I should merge her role with another...

Since this probably falsl into the category of outlining, what do you guys do to avoid the situation I'm in? Or has it never happened to you? Either way I'd like to hear your experiences with planning characters out ahead of time with regards to smooth sailing during NaNoWriMo.

 

[Shadoe]

It's happened to me. In my last story, I had two main characters and two characters I was introducing. I wanted the new characters to do something, and I gave them a couple scenes, but most of the work was done by the two main characters. I kept running into a wall with the story. I'd sit down to write on it but then just stop and lose interest. Then I sat down to map the story and realized the new characters weren't doing anything except feeding the main characters clues. So I had the new characters act on the clues instead of just telling the main character and voila! The story practically wrote itself after that.

I'm pondering doing this Nano thing. I have a couple things almost ready to sit down and write - just need to figure out one of the subplots. Of course, if it's in November, I don't know if I can wait that long.

 

[Philip Overby]

I think if you are already questioning your MC then you should probably get rid of her before she infects your whole story. I've had it happen to me before. I'll have a story I'm enjoying writing, then I look at how crappy my MC is. Then I'm sad I just wasted this story on such a crappy MC (but the magic of recycling is always in effect).

My outline is really rough. Just a blow by blow of what generally happens in each chapter. I think that will keep me covered. It worked last time for my NaNoWriMo so I think it should work again, in theory.

As for combining characters, don't be afraid to do that. Sometimes you have elements of characters you enjoy, but they just don't fit into the overall story without combining them. Harry Plinkett, who does hilarious reviews of movies, said it best about Star Wars: Episode I. "They should have taken the character Qui-Gonn Jin (sp?) and combined him with Obi-wan Kenobi, to make a new character named Obi-wan Kenobi." That cracks me up every time.

 

[JCFarnham]

I'm questioning her in the sense that she holds the least motive out of my fairly large cast.. but everyone of them I need to pull of the plot, as far as I can tell. For example, with out her everyone already knows about "the Captain"'s business of being a "handy man" therefore I wouldn't be able to logically explain that he's basically a bounty hunter.. it could be done without her, but then I also need a character who is the "that something we were missing before" character to drive the plot to out of the ordinary places.

I definitely need to outline her more.. she's justified I just don't know how yet haha I like to have the right amount of "foils" to effectively show off the wide variety of personalities. Soo it kind of works.

Of course, still plenty of time to get this sorted before Nano. I've got a subplot too that will no doubt sustain me through the 50,000 so I'm not too worried.

 

[Hëradïn]

I should probably sit down and write down my main plot points and go in and insert subplots points. I'm pretty sure that I can get to 50000 with what I'm thinking.

 

[JCFarnham]

I get the feeling that a lot of nano-ers are able to sustain 50,000 words on one plot, so if we all throw in a related subplot then ... easy right?

Haha I don't know, I've never done this before soo.

 

[mythique890]

I've never done NaNoWriMo, but I want to this year. I didn't even think of outlining beforehand. Well, to be honest, I don't have an idea at all so far. I guess I should get on it.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

I have a idea. I even managed to get a workable start, so, on to the thrashing out of ideas.

 

[Philip Overby]

I just finished outlining my NaNoWriMo, a novella I'm working on for a publisher, and the 3rd manga an artist and I are working on. I took some advice I heard a while back. If you want to do professional work, you'll pretty much always outline. Only a handful of pro writers can get by writing without outlining and those are usually people who have a "name" behind them.

Not to say NaNoWriMo will lead to a pro sale, but you never know unless you try! Of course I think people get hung up on first drafts too much, but that's a story for another thread, which I'll probably go start right now!

 

[pskelding]

I'm still well into planning my novel for Nanowrimo but I also decided to start posting on my blog about it. As I was reading back through my research notes and planning notes I was thinking about how the novel started to evolve from a single idea gradually building up to a full-on mash-up and finally into what I now call Dark Archers. I wrote a blog post about it today and found that this was very motivating for me towards writing for Nanowrimo.

My planning now is past 2 page synopsis, now I have a complete scene list with POVs that has improved since it's first draft. Character bios including motivation, goals and personality are all done. Some scenes have some notes included and now I'm starting to add research bits I might need into the scene notes. I know if I follow this guide I will have a passable first draft which fewer problem to fix during the first and second redrafts. I'm starting to now feel more confident about the story and characters. During writing the scene list I discovered that I needed to add the POV of the main 'enemy' antagonist and a minor character's POV to show the growth of my main character and the minor's characters growth in reaction to my main character's growth.

 

[Ophiucha]

Once again, I find myself distinctly lacking a plot. This is a problem I've had for years, not really liking plot. I have themes, characters, worlds, actual writing all down, and I have dozens to spare, but when it comes to a plot... eh, I find they just get in the way of what I want to write. I have a story about a werewolf which is mostly just about him adjusting to being a werewolf, how his family hides him on the full moon, how he came to be a werewolf, and it ends with him getting shot (as most werewolf stories tend to, I suppose). Another story of mine is about an immortal woman whose best friend just died (of old age), who decides to leave the city she's spent the past three centuries in and see her country, to find the pleasures of life that keep people young in spirit, as she will be young in body forever. Half of the story is about her watching grapes grow, be picked, crushed, fermented, and waiting until it's been aged enough to drink. Indeed, I have exactly one plot in all of my stories with one - malleable in the details - and it's outright dreadful. Characters A, B, C (up to F) travel from point G to H to obtain something (usually killing someone, but not always), only to learn that what they really wanted (who they really wanted to kill) was back in G - but they tend to get something even greater, or half of what they really want, in H, going back to G, and actually getting what they want, in full or otherwise. The only variation I have on that one is a story in which they never make it to H, but realize beforehand that they should try to get back to G, then die before they make it back to G.

Anyway, I don't have a plot to plan, so I've basically done nothing for NaNo. I have plenty of half-created characters and worlds that I can adapt for a plot once one comes my way, though, so it'll be easy enough to jump in.

 

[Hëradïn]

that one with the werewolf, him learning to be a werewolf is the plot, just so you know.

 

[Ophiucha]

I suppose, but there isn't really a conflict or anything driving the story forward besides the progression of time.

 

[JCFarnham]

Sometimes the progression of time is enough.

But plot is good. No plot, no gripping story. Just my opinion mind you.

 

[Hëradïn]

I suppose, but there isn't really a conflict or anything driving the story forward besides the progression of time.

the conflict is him coming to grips with his new lifestyle.

 

[Ophiucha]

@Rhea, That is a stretch of the term, I'd say. Imagine a movie in which a man puts in his resume, gets a desk job, and then for the next two hours, you mostly just watch him get used to the job and find a way to balance taking calls and reading Cracked on his computer, and then at the end, he gets fired. There's no "he's going to get deported and needs to find a job to keep himself in the country", no "but away from work, he runs boxing tournaments in the local pub", no "this is a job he's always loved and wanted, but as time progresses, he realizes he would be better working in sales", it's just about a guy getting a job, getting used to a job, and losing his job. That's really not a plot.

@JC, Yeah, I think that is my problem. Most of the stories I really like don't have a very gripping story. I like stories you can just pick up, open up, and enjoy. Not real page turners, just something that can take you for the time you invest in it. Slice-of-life, even. But they aren't very marketable, so I need to find some sort of story I can really invest myself in if I want to write something with any aspirations of publication.

 

[Hëradïn]

@Rhea, That is a stretch of the term, I'd say. Imagine a movie in which a man puts in his resume, gets a desk job, and then for the next two hours, you mostly just watch him get used to the job and find a way to balance taking calls and reading Cracked on his computer, and then at the end, he gets fired. There's no "he's going to get deported and needs to find a job to keep himself in the country", no "but away from work, he runs boxing tournaments in the local pub", no "this is a job he's always loved and wanted, but as time progresses, he realizes he would be better working in sales", it's just about a guy getting a job, getting used to a job, and losing his job. That's really not a plot.

well I guess I was just imagining all the cool wolf stuff you could make him do.

 

[JCFarnham]

Even if you don't immediately see what you may call a plot in one of those slice-of-life books there almost certainly is one. The simple fact that things happen makes it a plot. To me that is the definition of plot.

Lets take your movie example. Getting a job suggests conflict, that being the emotional conflict of doing something you would, in all probability, rather not be doing for something you definitely need- money. And a secondary conflict of not being fired, which is the worst possible scenario if you need money. I hope you don't mind me saying but without any of the "he realize he would be better working in sales" or "he going to get deported" this guy sound like a rather flat character in a flat story. As Rheadin said, the "getting used to" part suggests conflict.

I totally understand the slice of life thing, but even those have conflict and plot. Even a blow-by-blow, diary-like report of a persons day has plot, even conflict, after all no one is a completely emotionless shell to with absolutely nothing happens. Everything has plot, which to me is just a fancy way of saying "story-telling".

I hope you don't take offense to this post. It's not intended as such. I just wanted to put across my thoughts on the subject and say how important I think outlining is for this kind of undertaking regardless of what side of the discussion you come down on.

^_^

 

[Philip Overby]

@Ophiuca: A good, unique version of a werewolf story is Ginger Snaps. It's sort of a coming of age (I hate that term, however) story about becoming a woman and a werewolf. This girl starts to go through puberty and it sort of aligns the two together. But that's sort of the plot. That she is out of control and someone must stop her.

It's totally fine to have great characters, setting, etc. but if you have no plot then you have no story. Sure, picking out cool scenes is good, but to interconnect these things is also important. Making character A go to point B and meet character C is can lead to plot. If people are just wandering around, a lot can still develop from their wandering. The key is some motivation. Does the werewolf want to find his origin? Or just find food? Or escape his home? Does the immortal woman want to find love? A way to keep her friends alive? To escape her isolation and embrace a new lifestyle?

Anyway, sometime it's ok to start without a plot. It may just develop naturally.