Book Outlines: Helpful or Harmful?

To outline or not to outline. There are few questions more contentious in the writing world -- and writers (God bless us!) can be a rather contentious bunch.

Here is my tl;dr answer: Ultimately, I think whether you should use an outline depends on the writer, and everyone is different, so there is no one definite answer. That said, I think everyone should try outlining at least once. Otherwise, how could you know whether it works for you?

Stephen King: Reject the Tyranny of the Outline

As you likely know, Stephen King doesn't like outlining. He writes:

“I’d suggest that what works for me may work equally well for you. If you are enslaved to (or intimidated by) the tiresome tyranny of the outline and the notebook filled with “Character Notes,” it may liberate you. At the very least, it will turn your mind to something more interesting than Developing the Plot.” (On Writing, Stephen King)

I think I might talk about Stephen King too much but he is one of my favorite writers. And he’s straightforward, one of the traits I appreciate most in a person. I don’t always agree with King but what he has to say is well thought out and has worked for him over the course of decades, so it’s worth taking seriously.

Stephen King is exceptionally talented. His story, ‘It’ is one of my favorites -- after I read it I couldn’t use the washroom without fear for a couple of decades (especially at night). But, on the positive side, he gave me worlds to live in, he gave me characters I love and who have stayed with me. This may seem like an odd way of putting it, but it’s true: he gave me the gift of his thoughts.

I’m writing about Stephen King here because I think he is one of the best defenders, one of the best advocates, of pantsing.

Pantsing vs Plotting

Broadly speaking, there are two ways of constructing stories:

1. Plot a story 

Let’s talk about plot. In most stories the hero starts off in the Ordinary World, doing what he usually does every day. He wakes up, brushes his teeth, goes to school, wishes he was brave enough to ask Betty to the dance, gets bullied for his lunch money, etc.

This is where you show your readers your character’s soul, often by giving her a mini-adventure (think of any Bond film you’ve ever seen).

Then there’s a Call to Adventure (which is often rejected). The protagonist will be given a foreign dictator to subvert, or tasked with retrieving nuclear weapons from a sexy despot. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Often, the hero meets a mentor who gives him a gift that will aid him on his Journey into the Special World of the Adventure (Obi Wan Kenobi gave Luke the lightsaber that had belonged to his father). And so on.

There’s nothing wrong with a strongly plotted story. For one thing, it can help you determine early on whether the story works.

I’d like to make another point before I go on to the next section. You can have an outline without having a strongly plotted story. It all depends on whether an outline describes what is already in your story or whether it describes what you want to have in your story but isn’t there yet. I’ll talk more about this, below.

2. Pants a story

This is the idea that if you develop strong characters that the plot will spring from their actions. You put strong characters in a particular situation and then you say: What would these characters do in this situation? And then you write your answer down. That’s your story.

I wish I could remember where I read this, but years ago I read an article by Thomas Harris where he described writing his book, Red Dragon. His story emerged from what he saw his characters doing, from what he heard them saying. Psychologically, they were living, independent, entities. I think Harris is on the extreme end, he is an extreme pantser, but that’s the idea.

You don’t actually have to see and hear your characters for this technique to work! (Though it would help.)

My Experience

There are innumerable ways of writing a story, and I don’t think one way is intrinsically any better than another, it all depends on the writer using it, what is best for him or her.

When I pants a story -- when I start writing with a few characters and only a couple of ideas rattling around in my head -- I’ll often first write what I like to call a vomit draft. (Sounds nice, doesn’t it! ;)

The vomit draft is just that, I vomit up thoughts, thought fragments -- whatever -- onto the page. I ignore spelling, grammar, research, facts and good taste. No one will ever see one of my vomit drafts but me, it would be like walking out of the house naked.

I use a writing journal and so I scrawl this all out longhand, and that gives me the opportunity to incorporate images out of old magazines if they … how do I describe it? Sometimes an image will pop out at me. For example, I’ll see a woman’s hairstyle and I’ll realize, Yes! That’s what the protagonist’s hair looks like, so I'll cut the image out and paste it into my writing journal. (Yes, my journals look like something out of the film 'Se7en')

When I begin writing a story I try to write the story straight through and to be as brief as possible. If I realize I have to change something at the beginning of the story (e.g., the protagonist’s hair needs to be brown rather than blond), I'll make a note of that, but I’ll keep going.

Okay, my point is that at the end of this messy process I’ll have a pretty good idea of the story, of its shape. From that I can easily put together an outline. So … am I a plotter or a pantser?

For me, an outline is just a snapshot of where the novel is at, not necessarily where the novel needs to go. One of the HUGE advantages of using an outline is that it’s easier to come back to the novel if I have to break off working on it for a bit.

Just Do It

If you haven’t already found a method that works for you, for instance if you’re just starting out and wondering whether you should outline, then outline. At least try it out. Even Stephen King has tried it -- which is one reason he can confidently say it’s not for him.

An outline doesn’t have to be complicated. Just tell the story as briefly as possible and then break it up into sections. Identify the Call to Adventure, the confrontation at the Midpoint, the Final Showdown. Even if you only have those three things it can be a help. Or not.

If you find outlining doesn’t work for you, if you find you don’t need it, then fine!

As always, have a good writing day and I’ll talk to you again soon. :-)

The Structure of a Short Story: The First Complication

Today I continue my series on the structure of short stories.

Short stories are a terrific way to learn the craft of writing:

It is easier to find beta readers for short stories than it is for novels. 

A reader can finish a two or three thousand word short story in a few minutes and so requests for feedback are much more likely to be successful.

Writing a short story can help cleanse the palate after finishing the first draft of a novel. 

Try writing a short story between the first and second drafts of a novel, it will help take your mind off the novel and will help you come back to it with fresh eyes.

Writing short stories can improve one’s writing. 

Writing is like any other skill: use it or lose it. The good news is that through practice we can develop and deepen our skills. 

In a short story every line has to count. Every line has to either develop character or move the story along. Anything that doesn’t do one of those two things will stand out like a neon strobe light in the dark. 

Also, short stories provide excellent opportunities for trying out new and different techniques. For example, writing in first person present tense, or writing a story from the perspective of the villain, or trying to increase reader identification by using free indirect speech. 

The First Complication

In the first post in this series I outlined six parts that most short stories will have, especially genre stories: Setup, First Complication, New Plan, Major Setback, Climax and Wrap Up. Last time we looked at The Setup so today let’s look at The First Complication.

Last time we talked about the importance of the main character of the story--the protagonist--having a concrete, clearly defined goal. 

In the First Complication the protagonist’s plans run into a snag as an opposing force (the villain) derails the protagonist’s attempt to achieve her goal.[1]

An Example: The Matrix

It’s difficult to discuss the First Complication without also talking about the Call to Adventure, so please indulge me for a moment. In The Matrix Neo’s Call to Adventure was issued by Trinity in the nightclub scene at the beginning of the movie.

Trinity: “I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You're looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.”

Neo: “What is the Matrix?”

Trinity: “The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.” (IMDb)

Neo’s Call to Adventure is a challenge to want the truth badly enough to be willing to risk everything.

But The Call isn’t what we’re interested in at the moment, we’re interested in the First Complication, the first roadblock to this goal.

When Neo arrives at work the next day Agents come to take him into custody. Before the Agents arrive Morpheus gets in contact with Neo and tells him he has a choice: leave the building with the men who have come for him (the Agents) or climb out onto the window ledge and follow it until he reaches a scaffold. He is to then use the scaffold to reach the roof.

The Complication is the Agents and their pursuit of Neo. Trinity has asked Neo whether he wants to find the answer to the question, “What is the Matrix?” Now we find out how badly Neo wants the answer: What is he willing to risk? Does he want to know what the Matrix is badly enough to risk everything?

It turns out the answer is: No. Neo says, “This is insane!” and retreats inside the building to be hauled away by Agents.

The First Complication is a setback but not an All Hope is Lost moment. It is the first resistance to the hero achieving his goal after he has accepted the Call to Adventure. 

The First Complication should do three things:

a. It should give the reader a good idea of what the protagonist is up against, of what the opposition is.

b. It should raise the stakes.

c. It should tempt the protagonist to give up his goal.

The First Complication isn’t a single point in time, it is a sequence, a daisy chain of scenes and sequels.

Sometimes when I think about the important turning points in a story I think of them as discrete moments in time, but these turning points are usually sequences of significant events set off by an unusual occurrence. 

What we have been discussing, the First Complication in The Matrix, is a good example of a startling occurrence setting in motion a chain of events. The event that triggers this sequence is Neo receiving a package, finding a phone inside, and then (this is the startling part) the phone ringing the second it is unwrapped--just as though he is being watched.

That unusual event is like a push that knocks over the first domino in the sequence, in this case a sequence of scenes. In our example the sequence ends with Neo waking up in bed from what seems like a nightmare. Each scene in that sequence took Neo farther away from his comfort zone, from the Ordinary World, and drew him further into the Special World of the adventure. Then, at the end, he is snapped back into the Ordinary World of his mundane reality.

Summary

At the First Complication introduce opposition to the protagonist achieving her goal and also raise the stakes. 

For example, let’s say the protagonist’s general goal is to make their grandmother happy. Her concrete goal is to raise enough money to pay off the bank so that her grandmother’s home won’t be foreclosed. 

The protagonist’s initial plan: Raise the $150,000 needed by putting on a telethon at the local television station.

The opposing force: A land developer who wants to buy the grandmother’s land from the bank.

The complication: Not enough people give money. Why? Because the opposing force, the land developer, blocks all incoming calls at the local television station. By the time the protagonist realizes what’s happening and gets the phones working again the telethon is over.

We can up the stakes by saying that when the protagonist’s grandmother hears about the land developer’s dirty tactics, she has a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital. It turns out that Gran will be fine, but she doesn’t have medical insurance, so what money she had saved is now gone. Instead of having to raise $150,000 they now need $300,000 and the bank has used a technicality to move up the date.

  

(Alternatively, we could have let the protagonist succeed in raising the needed money and then have a thief steal it from her on her way to the bank. The protagonist could be injured during the holdup, making it more difficult for her to raise the money a second time.)

That’s it! What is the First Complication in your work in progress? What is your protagonist’s goal and how do you raise the stakes?

Links/References/Notes

1. For the purposes of this article I’ve made the opposing force a villain, but there are many other options. The opposing force could be society, or nature, or even the protagonist herself.

Photo credit: Untitled by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Using Index Cards To Outline A Novel

"The card system is your map and your guide; the Plot Points your checkpoints along the way, the 'last-chance' gas station before you hit the high desert; the ending, your destination." (Syd Field, Screenwriting)

I've been changing how I write. These days I use (virtual) index cards to create a detailed outline of my novel before I put pen to paper to create a first draft.

That said, I do write bits and pieces of scenes here and there, as the ideas come to me, so I have a feeling for my main characters' voices while I'm doing the cards.

Filling out index cards--approximately 56 index cards--will be familiar to just about anyone who has written a screenplay.  

Writing A Novel Using Index Cards

The first question I was asked after I explained this method to a friend was: That's too detailed. Are you nuts?!

But, hey, this is working for me (so far), maybe it'll work for you.

Before I go on, I'd like to mention that I'm not using physical index cards, I'm using the Index Cards app. I've been using this app for a few months now and can't recommend it highly enough. But one word of warning. I've had the program crash on me a few times, so I've learnt (the hard way) to back up my outlines. Be thou warned.

The Structure of a Novel

Although I love writing novellas--they are so much quicker--my first love is the novel, and I think this is also true for many readers. For my purposes, a novel is 80,000 (or so) words.

I've structured my current novel as follows:

First Act:

Trailer: 4 cards

First sequence: 5 cards

Second sequence: 5 cards

Second Act:

Third Sequence: 7  cards

Fourth Sequence: 7 cards

Fifth Sequence: 7 cards

Sixth Sequence: 7 cards

Third Act:

Seventh Sequence: 7 cards

Eighth Sequence: 7 cards

Total: 56 cards. That comes out to about 1,400 words per card (/per scene).

Those numbers are approximate. At the moment I have more than 56 cards, and the scenes are going to vary in length. When I roll up my sleeves and get writing I'm confident that not all scenes are going to be between 1,400 and 1,500 words! Some are going to be longer--much longer--and some much shorter.

These cards aren't meant to act as a straight jacket, just an approximation. After all, I'm writing a novel not a screenplay. They are a tool I can use to expose the bones of my story and let me suss out the gaps, the enormous gaping plot holes. As many, many, writers have said, it's much easier to change an outline than to change a completed first draft!

The Three Act Structure

I've written about the three act structure here: Story Structure.

Sequences

Each sequence, like the story itself, will have a beginning, middle and end. In the beginning we introduce the characters and setting. Also, we might foreshadow at least a few of the conflicts to come. 

In the middle we have conflict and try-fail cycles. Characters strive to achieve their goals and are thwarted. They devise new strategies and try again. They are thwarted again, and so on.

At the end there is a resolution. Either the character achieves their goal or they don't. Usually they don't. Stakes are raised (and clearly spelt out).

Scenes

Each scene is a lot like each sequence. Each has a beginning, a middle and an end. In the beginning we establish the characters and setting, in the middle conflict is generated by characters striving for goals and falling short. And, at the end, though there is a resolution of sorts, most commonly the hero will not reach their goal, the stakes will be raised, and they'll have to try, try, and try again.

Elements of an Index Card: Scenes

Each index card is either a scene or a sequel. (Here are two excellent articles by Jim Butcher which explain scenes and sequels.)

If the index card is a scene, then here are the categories I use:

Who

Who is in the scene? List each character.

Character's goal

For each main character in the scene, list his/her goal for this scene. Each character's goal should be concrete/specific enough to take a picture of. (Each character's goal will tie into their goal for both the sequence and the story as a whole.)

Character's stakes

For each main character in the scene, if the character wins/achieves her goal, what will he/she win?

If the character fails to achieve his/her goal, what will he/she lose?

What

What happens in this scene?

Where

Where does it happen? Indoors? Outdoors? 

Is this setting interesting on its own? Does it have any significance to any of the characters? To the theme?

When

When does the action in this scene take place? What time of day or night is it? What date is it?

Urgency

Why must this goal me accomplished now? If there is no sense of urgency, conflict is undermined.

Opposition

What opposes the character's acquisition of their goal? 

Elements of an Index Card: Sequels

Dwight V. Swain in his invaluable text, Techniques of the Selling Writer, writes that:

"A sequel is a unit of transition that links two scenes, like the coupler between two railroad cars. It sets forth your focal character's reaction to the scene just completed and provides him with motivation for the scene next to come."

Swain goes on to note that the functions of a sequel are threefold:

a. "To translate disaster into goal."

b. "To telescope reality."

c. "To control tempo."

I'm only going to touch on the first of these functions--turning disaster into goal--here.

So, if a particular scene is a sequel, then these are the questions I ask:

Emotion/Reaction

How does the viewpoint character--as well as the other main characters--react to the resolution of the previous scene? If the hero achieves his goal is he happy or is he devastated because it's not what he thought it would be? If he didn't achieve his goal, is he angry, resigned, depressed, emotionally devastated, etc, etc, etc?

Remember, this is unfiltered emotion. The hero is just reacting. (Although how a character reacts can tell readers an awful lot about your character.)

Review hero's situation and enumerate his/her options

After your POV character (which for the sake of brevity I've been assuming is your hero/protagonist) stops reacting they need to figure out what to do. So they'll need to review their situation (what were the stakes?) and think of several things they could do next. For each possibility make sure the goal is clear, as is the opposition and the new stakes.

The main thing: Make the goal for each possible alternative scenario crystal clear.

Decision/Choice

The hero must decide. Which option the hero picks should be consistent with their strengths and weaknesses, who they are as a person. Which is just another way of saying that it should be plausible.

Miscellaneous

That's almost it. As I go through my cards I try to remember to ask myself these questions:

- Have I shown that the protagonist is clear and resourceful?

- Have I given readers a clear idea of what the hero's wound is?

- Have I shown the hero's special talent?

- Have I shown the hero's primary strength and weakness?

- Have I shown the hero's quirk?

- Have I demonstrated the hero's guiding principle?

- Is the protagonist pursuing justice?

- Is the hero active? Does he/she act of her own volition or is she pushed into action by plot events?

That's it! Good writing.

PS: I just listened to The Narrative Breakdown podcast and picked up these tips:

1. Surround your hero with characters that lack his/her particular strength.

2. Give the hero three rules to live by, whether stated or implied.

3. A catchphrase (Poirot: I do not approve of murder) can go a long way to communicating character.

Photo credit: "Index card pic" by Karen Woodward under Creative Commons Attribution.