Outlining

Jul 26

I’ve never been a fan of outlining. But it’s not because I don’t think it’s a good idea to outline. Rather, I don’t want to do the work. Every time I sit down to outline my brain hurts. So why, you might ask, am I make myself outline now?

I hit a wall where the plot was not flowing right. I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know how to fix it. Enter the outline. For the past couple of days I have been putting together a solid outline detailing the main scenes in each chapter. Doing this has helped me to get reinvigorated about my project because I am seeing ways to make it work. And since I have written it all down, I don’t have to remember the brilliant ideas I came up with.

The other advantage of outlining is that it is allowing me to realize which relationships/characters do not work. I am cutting plot elements and adding new twists and scenes that contribute to the over all movement of the plot. In short, I am finding ways to make my story the best it can be.

What do you think about outlines? Do you outline before you write, in the middle of the writing process, or do you avoid outlines at all costs?

Oct 25

Assignment: Create a plot sketch using this photo as your inspiration

What follows is a quick and dirty plot sketch based on the photo to the left. The plot might be shoddy, but note what I have done here. There is a beginning, middle, and end. There is an MC, a love interest, and a villain. I do not waste time on too much back story, though I note things I may want to research. When I don’t know how to get from a to c, I leave b vague, providing only the most basic of information. I can go back later to fill in the gaps. By creating a short, quick sketch of the general flow of action, I at least have something to work from.

My Quick & Dirty Plot Sketch Example

MC returns from a trip. She has been living a few towns over, working as an apprentice (research ideas for what type of apprenticeship). When she returns to her village, she finds it empty. There is no one anywhere. A stillness fills the air
MC has no clue what happened. She did not hear any reports. There were suspicions of possible trouble because there had not been a word from her family for a few weeks. That is why she was given leave to return.
MC wanders down the empty streets, and arrives at her parents home. It is empty. There is no sign of life. She goes to her room and finds it just as she left it. Nothing is out of place. It’s like everyone just disappeared.
MC is walking through the ghost town. She walks to the statue garden, her favorite place, and breaks down. She cries out of fear, out of loneliness. Everything she knows is gone, and she doesn’t know why. She hears a noise and it startles her to silence. She pulls a knife (she always carries a knife – maybe this has something to do with her apprenticeship) but finds nothing threatening. A man is standing there, arms held out, showing her he has no weapons.
MC lowers her knife, but still keeps a firm grip on it. She doesn’t know this man or whether to trust him. Maybe he has something to do with what happened here. But then, he might know what happened here too.
Man asks MC who she is and what she is doing here. She is offended. He has no right to ask her. This is her home. After snapping at one another, she learns that he has seen something like this before. This is not the first town to vanish.
MC and man return to town and find some mildly stale bread and cheese in the local tavern. They eat a solemn meal and man asks if she has anywhere to go. She says she isn’t going back to the apprenticeship until she learns what happened here. After an argument, the man agrees to take her with him on his travels to learn what is happening to their world.
Travel — see stuff. Learn about one another. Uncover clues to what happened. Run into some danger. Find more and more villages that have disappeared.
In the end, they discover that some evil wizard is responsible. He has been transporting the people to his realm to serve as slaves. They defeat him and everyone is returned and lives happily ever after.

Creating Your Own Plot Sketch

In creating my actual plot sketch for NaNoWriMo, I began in a similar way, writing down bullet marks for moments that progress the story. I then went back and filled in additional information or made changes where necessary. For example, in my NaNoWriMo project, I realized that the conflicting love interest (yes, I am using a love triangle) should be someone from the MCs past. This worked better than providing two new characters. It created a stronger emotional connection and helped to create motivation and tension. Because I have not yet started the novel, all I had to do was go back to a few places in my plot sketch and make a couple of changes. This was much easier than rewriting an entire chapter.

By laying out the plot in this way, I can easily see where the story is going. I can also make sure that I have a story arc (see my post from Oct. 13 for more on story arcs). When November 1 roles around, I won’t have to waste time deciding what I am writing or figuring out how to make my story work. I can just open up my short plot sketch, glance over it, and then get down to some serious writing.

Now it’s your turn

Do you have an idea for NaNoWriMo? Have you created a plot sketch/outline/etc.? Do you have another method that works for you? If you answered no to 2 or more of these questions, get cracking. November 1 is fast approaching.

If you need more help thinking about your project, be sure check out Wednesday’s post on choosing a genre.

Oct 24

With NaNoWriMo 2010 fast approaching, I’ve got one question for you. Are you ready?

For first-time participants, you may be thinking, ‘but isn’t preparation against the rules?’ Having an idea, an outline, character sketches, etc. is not cheating. You are only cheating if you add words to your word count that you did not actually write during NaNoWriMo.

As a 3-time failure, I will let you in on the secret to my lack of success. I was unprepared.

If you do nothing else…

Have at least a general idea about your story. My first year, I wasted valuable time day 1 trying to figure out what in the world I was going to write. As I’m sure many of you have noticed, November 1 inconveniently falls on a Monday this year. Unless you are taking the day off of work or school (which I am considering), you will have precious few hours on day 1 to add some progress to your progress bar. All the more reason to come in with a plan.

Your NaNoWriMo Story Plan

Having a plan does not mean you need to have a fully developed, beautifully outlined plan. For many, that would take the fun out of NaNoWriMo. A plan can be as simple as knowing your general plot and the name of you MC. This year, I have decided to go with a slightly more detailed plan, but it is by no means the fully sketched out plan suggested by Karen Wiesner in her book First Draft in 30 Days (a great book, by the way).

Because everyone loves an example

To help get your juices flowing, I thought an example was in order. One way I get ideas is through pictures. A picture really can say a thousand words, or in this case, 50,000, if you know how to look at it. Look at the photo and let you imagination flow. Think of some stories you could create from it. The scene in the photo does not even need to be included in your story. You could base it off of the emotion you get from looking at the photo or what the photo makes you think of. Post your ideas and come back tomorrow for an example of a short plot sketch I created based off of this photo.

Oct 13

As it turns out, I am having a harder time giving up on my WIP than I thought I would. Even though I’m ready to put it aside and ignore all of its problems, I can’t let it rest. Instead of working out the details for my next project as I lie in bed at night, willing myself to sleep, my mind keeps wandering back to my WIP. How can I fix it? How can I make the story I know is in there work?

Story Arc

The other day I was browsing the blogosphere and I came across a post by Alexis Grant titled Learning by doing (or the importance of story arc). This post got me thinking. It’s not that my story is a bad idea. I think the concept is there. The characters, with a little bit of editing, have the potential to be quite lovable. The problem lies within the story arc.

Now this is something I’ve sort of known. Every time I sit down to work on my WIP, I find myself stuck on the flow of action. But it isn’t the flow so much as it is my inability to pick my inciting incidents. I have thrown so much in there, the reader doesn’t know where to look.

In researching story arc after reading Alexis’ post, I came across this very familiar diagram. You may recognize it from middle school English classes. I know I used to sit and stare at it, wondering how this was going to help me to dissect Lord of the Flies or get the lead in Antigone. As a reader, it didn’t seem too useful. As a writer, though, it is quite useful.

If you are not much of a graphs person, the explanation of story structure that goes with the graph was pretty clear and concise. Between the graph and the explanation, I feel like I now have a pretty solid grasp about what makes a successful story arc. And that brings me back to my WIP, which pretty much lacks a story arc.

And so, I am picking my WIP back up and working out the story arc. I’m sure there will be a lot of shifting and deleting, but if it leads to a book that people are excited about reading, isn’t it worth it in the end?

Oct 03

Yesterday I finally picked up a copy of The Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, 2011 and I am inspired. I wish I had picked up a copy sooner. If you haven’t picked your copy up yet, I highly recommend you do.

Bitter Sweet Endings and New Beginnings

I have decided to put my WIP on hold. It is a total mess and, while I still like the basic idea behind it, it’s not what I really want to be writing. This book started as something completely different. By the time I reworked everything to make the plot work, I just didn’t love it anymore. Even though I am so close to the end of the 1st draft, that last couple chapters are killing me. I need a break. I need to quit rushing to finish it out of my desire to have something to get published. If it’s not good, no one will buy it. Of course, I’m not trashing the book, just putting it on hold and starting something new.

In reading the articles in the Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, an idea began to form, and that idea turned into a nice, concise plot summary complete with a beginning, middle and end. There are tough decisions, identity issues, and betrayal. There is a solid setting, character flaws, and suspense. And the best part about it is that the idea came along without forcing it. The same cannot be said about my now on hold WIP.

While I love NaNoWriMo, it did cause me to force an idea. I remember 3 years ago on November 1, sitting in my home office trying to will a plot into my head. Maybe veteran writers are capable of doing that, but for someone writing their first full length book, that kind of thinking can be disastrous. No wonder I have never succeeded in completing a NaNoWriMo.

What next?

This time around, I’m doing it right. I so badly want to dive in and start turning my concept into a book. But I learned my lesson last time. I’m going to sit down and write an outline. I’m going to develop my characters before I even put them to paper. I know that my outline will change and my characters may pick up new traits or abandon other ones, but to write a book without a blueprint can be suicide for a writing career, or at least it can be or me.

Sep 07

We are now 1 week into September, which means I have 3 weeks left to finish my first draft if I’m going to meet my deadline. As it stands, I have 30,057 words, or 105 pages. Can I make it to the finish line? I’d better.

This leaves me about 3 weeks to write 15,000 words. Considering NaNoWriMo participants write 50,000 words in 4 weeks, and my most successful year I wrote 40,000 (the basis for my current WIP), it should be doable. Of course, of those 40,000 words I wrote in those 4 weeks, I have only kept about 10,000, if that.

Why the push to finish my first draft by September 30?

There are a couple reasons:

To give me time to edit it and have it submission ready by the end of the year. I’m not sure how long edits will take, but I’m hoping this will be enough time. I plan on hiring an editor through Grub Street, so hopefully that will help speed up the process.
I have a YA book concept pulling at my creativity and I’m dying to start outlining. I’m already having trouble deciding which book to plot out in my head before bed – my WIP or this new concept I’m loving more and more each day
To gear up for NaNoWriMo – I plan on using my new YA concept for this years challenge, and I want to spend all of October hammering out a solid outline (I know, this sort of breaks the rules, but they never actually rule out outlines, they just dissuade you from using them). I’m hoping to finally complete my 50,000 words in 1 month and be well on my way to completing a second book. If this first book attempt has shown me anything, it’s the importance of writing from an outline. Going into my current WIP not knowing how it was going to end has really slowed things down.
I need to finish. Come November 1, I will have been working on this book for 3 years. I remember reading somewhere that it takes most first time authors about that long to write their first book. I didn’t believe it at the time. And now here I am, approaching my 3 year mark. It’s not so much about the time I’ve put into this, but it’s more about the emotional connection. I’ve been with this WIP longer than some divorces I know were married. The more emotionally connected I get to this book, the harder it will be to deal with criticism and edits. I need to be done.
I need to move on.

My plan of action

I have to reach ~750 words a day. This is actually not that difficult. Most days I write during lunch. I can usually got 500-600 words in my 30 minute lunch period. That just means I will have to devote another 15-30 minutes each evening to writing, plus 30 minutes to entering everything into the computer (I write by hand during lunch and before bed).

Naturally, life will get in the way some days. I don’t want to blow all of my creative energy this month and have nothing left for November, so I would like to still have a life this month. But lucky for me, I already know of a few things that will help me out. Take next week. I will spend 3.5 hours on the Acela Monday morning. There’s nothing I love more than writing on trains, and isn’t that how J.K. Rowling outlined her entire series, on a train trip? I will then spend that entire week in New York, meaning a hotel room waiting for me every evening, full of few to no distractions and time for lots of writing. Then there are the weekends. If I stay focused, I can get a couple thousand words each weekend day. Piece of cake.

Of course, this means my creativity time will be extremely important. But who knows, maybe I’ll throw a celebration in October once the 1st draft is complete. And now that I’ve just written close to 700 non-WIP words, back to writing.

Dec 26

Books on writing – you walk into the bookstore and there sit shelves and shelves of books, all promising to make you a better writer. Sitting for hours on the floor of the bookstore, you feel like you are accomplishing something as you peruse the content of book after book. Then you decide on one or two and as you pay for them, a warm feeling washes over you. This book will be the one that works. This book will provide you with the secrets you need to succeed.

Weeks go by and you have yet to finish reading the book, or finish much of anything else. Slowly you begin to realize that this book was not the cure to your writer’s block. It did not provide you with the secret to quitting work so that you could find the time to write. It did little more than provide you with a couple weeks worth of a false sense of accomplishment.

Not all writing books, though, are created equal. For Christmas, I got a new writing book. Whereas the others were how-to writing books full of inspirational stories and writing prompts, this one is nothing more than a reference. As an aspiring children’s book writer (grades 5/6), I felt that Mogilner & Mogilner’s Children’s Writer’s Word Book, 2e would be different than the other books. This book does not claim to provide some secret to success. Rather, it is a thesarus set up to help writers choose appropriate words for young audiences. Writing for adults, any word that naturally comes to my mind should be at the appropriate reading level. Writing for children, though, its hard to say. Looking back on my childhood, I like to think that I knew all the words then that I know now. But deep down, I know that this is not the case.

This book also provides information about what subjects children learn in school at various ages. I must say I was extremely relieved to see that environmentalism (the underlying theme of my novel), was cited not only as one of the big topics from 5th grade on, but also as a topic that will continue to be published for years to come.

In addition to this book, I have also found Karen Weisner’s First Draft in 30 Days to be equally useful. While I have always resisted outlining, her outlining techniques have really helped me to work out some tricky plot points, such as how to end my novel and who the protagonist will be. I was also able to work in some really good subplots. Now all I have to do is sit down and turn those outlines into stellar prose!

Books on writing may be the procrastinator’s best friend, but there are a few gems out there that can really aid one’s writing.

To Outline or Not to Outline, That is the Question

Quick & Dirty Plot Sketch: Counting Down to NaNoWriMo – Part 2

My Quick & Dirty Plot Sketch Example

Creating Your Own Plot Sketch

Now it’s your turn

Are You Ready? Countdown to NaNoWriMo – Part 1

If you do nothing else…

Your NaNoWriMo Story Plan

Because everyone loves an example

Story Arc – The Life or Death of a Novel

Story Arc

Change of Plans

Bitter Sweet Endings and New Beginnings

What next?

September Status Update

Why the push to finish my first draft by September 30?

My plan of action

Books on Writing ~ The Procrastinator's Tool