Outlining Techniques

for what it's worth:

sunandshadow said:

Firstly, this question is only directed to writers who actually do outline.

How you go from foggy idea to finished outline?

I think about the idea a lot--months and months, sometimes for years. I wait until I have whole scenes in my head that stand up to repeated "viewings." I role-play dialogue (by myself!). If the idea doesn't excite me enough to think about over and over, I let it go.

Do you use any particular brainstorming techniques?

Music inspires me a lot. Sometimes I make up a story to go with a particular song, or I use a song I like to flesh out an idea or scene. I picture it as if it were a movie and the song was accompanying the action. It gets me in the creative mood.

Do you use a system such as the marshall plan, or a template such as the 9-act play structure?

Nope, because I don't know what those are!

How do you test your outline to see if it will result in a good book, the best possible way to present this particular story idea?

I ask my husband. He's the real writer in the family. (the point being, get a second or third opinion)

What do you do if, after you make your outline, there's a chunk of it you just don't like?

I don't have to worry about that, because after I consult with my husband, he tells me to what to change or get rid of.

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A sometimes outliner, maybe ... and long winded, too.

sunandshadow:

Hmm. My outlines, when I have them, are extraordinarily brief and don't always pass for outlines among writers who compose much lengthier ones. Many are just a paragraph. A few are a page or two long.*

Here's what I do:

When I get an idea I usually have a pretty good sense of whether or not it's one that'll support a story or not. If I think it will, or if I merely suspect it will, I jot down what I think is important about the story. Note that what I think is important varies greatly and may be anything from an acutely felt character or problem to the ever-popular spark of "What if?"

If I get this part right, if I pin down the essential nature of the story, whatever I think that essential nature is, and if I do that in just one paragraph or two pages, I have both the idea and the story and there's not much question that it'll turn into something finished that captures at least a little of what I originally thought I was after.

If I can't pin down the important matter of the story (perhaps you could read that as "material"), I realize it doesn't have one and it therefore won't support a story at any length.

For instance, here's the complete and unadulterated outline for a 5,400 word short story (now twice published):

I shall lock myself in an untidy room
put a razor to my skin
and remove it

The above three lines conveyed to me the essential nature of a character and a conflict, and it suggested to my brain story purpose -- a word I like far better than "structure", because it indicated having a clear idea of where the story was going as opposed to having an (/a stunting) expectation of what I merely thought should happen before I ever began. This is not to say that I had all ideas firmly in mind from the get-go based upon that sense of purpose, but that the story became largely self-propelled from that moment.

By way of further example, I wrote a 30,414 word novella as part of a proposed series for a publisher looking to start a line of horror novellas, and the outline for both the initial story and the series was originally written on about two pages of one of those 6-inch by 9-inch steno notebooks, which works out to about 86 handwritten lines setting up the initial series arc (all beginning and middle with no end because, hey, I wanted to keep getting paid), the main character, an indication of the kinds of stories that would be told and why, and the bare bones beginning, middle, and end of the first story of the series (covered in 30 lines of the 86-line series outline).

The original outline for a most recent novel was 30 handwritten lines in the same steno notebook and it hit the high points of plot from beginning to middle to, almost, the end. That was a 100,000-word job (more like 150,000 in the original draft) for a projected 75,000 word tale.

Thus it seems that in my world of working the outline is less important than the draft, but the draft doesn't begin until I pin down the essential nature of the idea, whether in three lines or thirty. Heck, sometimes I don't take a single preparatory note (which then puts me in the "do not respond if you don't outline" group, but writing sans notes is not the same as blasting off willy-nilly, so long as there is purpose).

I suppose what all this amounts to is: yes, sometimes I outline, but I don’t get too detailed. Or perhaps more clearly stated, I don't get too hung up in every detail, but rather aim for the important ones.

This seems to prevent getting stuck with an outline that doesn't work, or that I might find doesn't work once I've written a draft to a point in the outline in which I discover how shoddy the setup really was. If you find yourself doing that, no amount of tinkering with the outline or the draft beyond the point of oops will fix things until you go back to the (usually) much earlier parts that went amiss and fix those.

As far as brainstorming goes, that seems to occur when I'm writing the story, not the outline -- or at least more of it occurs during the writing than it does during the outlining. Perhaps that's because my outlines aren't as detailed as I suppose those produced by others are.

Concerning the matter of structure, templates, and so forth, I'm rarely aware of consciously structuring when I write. I mentioned story purpose earlier. That's what drives my stories forward, and it's from this sense of story purpose that the structure unfolds, rather than from a consciously preconceived plan. After all, my outlines, when I have them, are less about when specific things occur and much more about what few things must occur.

Sometimes I've noticed patterns in my work as I produced it, but I'm certain that most writers will, and that they will because they've read bunches and bunches of stories, thus making it easier to notice that, ah, this one reminds me an awful lot of that other one by whatsisname.

Concerning the notion of testing your ideas to see if they are the best possible way to present a particular story: if you figure this one out, let me know.

My contribution here is that the one thing I've noticed is that once I have a sense of story purpose (others refer to this as the story voice), the blasted thing takes off without question. When that happens I'm on the right track. All I have to do is write the story down, a.k.a. take dictation.

Then, when I have a draft I don't mind showing anyone, I show it to a few beta testers first, folks I've known a long time and who have read a bazillion more books than I have and who aren't afraid to offer unvarnished opinions. They understand the genres in which I work and many more in which I don't. I understand their opinions and value them highly. There are three of them (beta testers, not opinions, ha ha), and when they all agree I'm either in trouble or about to make a sale.

So it goes.

Hope this proves useful or entertaining.

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Note from first paragraph:
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*I've written longer, superbly-detailed outlines. Not a single one of the stories resulting therefrom was any good, and not a single one of them has sold.

I, personally, don't think you should go from a foggy idea to an outline - atleast a detailed one, anyway. I doubt any writer can sit down with a foggy plot and crank out an entire novel outline. A lot of development should be done with the plot before jumping into an outline. I'm in the middle of outlining my planned six-novel series and I have been developing the plot for the series for over seven years (seven years, six months and sixteen days to be exact). I think you should definitely have key plot points of the entire story before going into an outline. (JMO)

I'm with E.G. on this. I can't outline until I know at least some of the major plot points. From foggy idea I start asking myself questions: what does the character want? what will it take to get it? what event(s) triggered this want? what must the MC do or learn to get it? As the answers come to me, I jot them down, pick the ones that appeal to me the most (i.e., get me excited about the story). Then I start listing the major steps to get from A to B and begin designing roadblocks. Who puts up the roadblocks? Is my MC responsible? At this point, I can start sketching an outline.

sunandshadow said:

E.G. Gammon - So what techniques do you use to develop the plot and figure out the plot points before outlining?

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Asking someone the techniques they use to develop plot is like asking a person how or why he/she writes. There's no real answer I can give you. Developing plot is just something you learn as a writer. But, I'll try to explain a few things I use to develop my plots:

An unexpected twist:

In book one of my planned novel series, there's a subplot about a woman who is pregnant and readers don't know who the father is because readers don't see her with anyone. As the novel progresses, more and more clues are pointing to the father being someone who would be a perfect choice, because if he was the father, it would put a strain on the woman's relationship with another person. But, at the very end of the book, it turns out the father is someone who readers never expected it to be - a twist that opens so many doors - and carries the plot throughout the rest of the books of the series. Instead of the plot where "How will this baby affect her relationship with (so and so)?" you have "How did she and the father get mixed up with each other?" "What made her turn to him for comfort?" "How will this secret affect her family and friends?" "Will the two get married?" "Will she raise the child on her own?" "How will the man react to the fact that he is a father?" "How will his life be changed?" You get the idea...

Using an unexpected twist will open doors and the plots will develop faster than you could have ever imagined. If a tsunami destroys a town, have it wash something ashore, or uncover something that was buried - something in the town's dark past. If someone has a secret box and a key they stumbled upon, have the key be, not to the box, but to something else, a "something" with more secrets than the secret box. Twists open doors.

Expanding a scene that already happened:

Go back to the beginning and make what we thought to be true, not. If the story is about a man and a woman, with a daughter, who fight with each other because the woman wants the man to stop dealing drugs, and the daughter can't stand the fighting and she goes into her room at the beginning and slams the door, go back to that later. Maybe the police or CIA sneaked in and were waiting for the daughter in her room to get her help in stopping her father, who we find out then, is just one link in a huge drug organization. If a novel begins with a car crash and the one at fault claims he is innocent - that the whole thing was just a car malfunction - later reveal that someone tampered with his car - someone wanting to kill the other person involved. What would be the motive? How did this person pull it off? What links did that person take to cover up their tampering? Does this person have an accomplice? Will this person flee? What more will the person do? Etc...

Using your own life and experiences as inspiration:

Everyone has been through a lot in their lives, no matter how old they are. I'm almost 20 and I have been through the death of my father, a family member's alcohol addiction, one of my siblings' bisexuality and drug problems, and I myself have battled being overweight, unaccepted for more reasons than I can count, depression, suicidal thoughts (over my weight problem, being teased at school and for being unaccepted), and other things I won't get into. Each huge event in my life could be a novel of its own. And if something has story potential, throw in a little twist to change it and make it better. I went to Europe one summer - a summer that changed my life for the better. I could write a novel about it and to fill the plot holes, I could throw in a plane crash or a dark secret that happened during the trip or a piece of luggage I picked up by mistake in the airport or something I overheard by someone who thought I didn't know the foreign language. If you draw from your own life and your own experiences, you'll have lots of things to develop plot. (And because it happened to you, there will be a great emotional link between you and the story, and THAT will develop the plot, as well)

I know I kind of rambled on there for a minute, but hopefully some of my "techniques" will help you. And hopefully more members will reply with some of their own ideas to develop plot.

sunandshadow said:

What do you do if you have some plot point ideas but they don't want to fit together?

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Drop them. Or work hard to make them fit. Change them. Twist them. Add or take out characters. Throw in a link that connects them with something else. Make it an idea for a sequel. Use it in another project. Ideas are ideas and they don't have to be used all together. My novel series is a combination of one huge idea and a couple other ideas I had once put on the back burner as "other" projects. I took them later and incorporated them into my novel series and it worked perfectly. And one plot I cut from my novel series because I couldn't make it fit, is now an "other" project - a separate novel - I plan to write after my novel series - when I finish it.

sunandshadow said:

Do you use a system such as the marshall plan, or a template such as the 9-act play structure?

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As I am outlining my novel series, I plan it like a team of writers would plan a primetime TV show season. Most primetime shows have a 22 episode season. The writers have a plot and try to fit it into the 22 episodes. Try to use a similar technique with your novel - setting a chapter goal and treat them like episodes. Each book of my novel series has a set number of chapters, and I am planning the plot as if each chapter is an episode. I want them all to be exciting, contain more and more of the plot development/reveals, but not too much, and an incredible ending to have readers anxious for the next chapter.

sunandshadow said:

How you go from foggy idea to finished outline?

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I can only speak for my WIP, since it was for this I developed my personal system.

The following is a simplified version of what works for me. If at any stage something changes, I have to go back up the process - e.g. if something doesn't seem to work when I draft it, or if I have a cool idea, then I have to revisit earlier steps to tweak the structure to accomodate it.

1. Find wonderful High Concept
2. Mind Map to nail down the themes - really just what's cool. Nothing arty.
3. Work out main Story Question: "Can Hero overcome X? Yes/No, but Y! Now Z!"
4. Write summary answering Story Question.
5. Find sub conflicts within Story Summary and break these into Acts, each with their own Act Question
6. Summarise each Act, answering its question
7. Find sub conflicts within each Act and break these into Scenes (or sequences) each with its own Scene Question
8. Write each Scene, answering its question.

This system has the advantage of locking in conflict at every level before I draft. No conflict, no scene.

I hasten to add that this is all less mechanistic than it sounds. It works best if I visualise the possible outcomes as I go.

The results get good feedback from my crit group. However, I'm not in print, so feel free to ignore me.

Potential answers...

sunandshadow:

The short and not-very-useful answer to your question is of course, I don't know, either; and, yes. But that's only because what I consider "the essential nature of a story" differs from one to the next.

A whole lot of the time the essential nature of a story is feeling. I feel an emotional context for a story or its various parts, and it's a desire to capture this feeling in words that moves me to write them down. If I can't evoke that, I feel as if I've failed and written utterly flat and uninteresting prose that has wandered uselessly from the thumping heart of story. I rarely outline stories that start in this fashion.

Just as you have listed them, sometimes I also imagine a theme or a premise or a climax or an ongoing struggle to be a story's "essential nature," which may only be another way of saying, "the thing that most makes me want to write the story." There is always, however, an attendant emotional context. Sometimes all that emotional context amounts to is a desire to do something cool. These are the kinds of stories that usually start as a few jotted down notes.

So it goes.

There's no one way to outline. Here's how I do it:


That's the first scene. I'll make revisions as I go, but I don't start writing prose until everything is broken down. I just see outlining as writing a story without writing prose. Non-outliners do both at the same time.