For me, outlining is extremely important. Mainly because a large part of the action in my mysteries take place in the past and have so darn many details, I can’t rely on my pea-brain to remember it all. I begin with my “jump-start” outline. Now, what the heck is that, you ask. I made up the term so I can’t refer you to any book or manual. Since there are two separate story lines in my books – past and present – I actually have two “jump-start” outlines. But since both are very similar I combined them for today’s blog.
Modern (and Past) Story Line
a. Broad overview of story, ie: Digital photographer searches for missing Van Gogh painting after her best friend is murdered (my last book.) The Past story line will be a bit different since this is where the story begins.
Expand this to a paragraph if you like, but no more for now.
b. Characters: Snapshots of main characters, both protagonists and antagonists, to include physical description (so you can visualize them,) their likes, dislikes, what’s important to them . . . or not, education, occupation, you know, general stuff. Add in personality traits: stingy, obsessive, lazy, kooky. Use bullet points. They’ll grow organically as you write.
c. Setting: Where does most of the plot take place? In my last book, Washington, D.C. and Paris, France. Ooh la la. Get it right – go visit, don’t just look at pictures.
d. Major conflicts, ie: Is the main character getting divorced, in love with a loser, always fighting with her boss, her mother, her sister? Are her relationships getting in the way of her job success? These may only come up occasionally and in usually in sub-plots.
e. Ending: You may not always know this at the beginning, but at some point — early on –you do need to know what the ending will be. As a caveat, I will say that I had the ending for one of my books and my editor suggested a completely different one. I loved his idea, changed it and in doing so, ruined my follow-up book. (You’ll have to read it and see. Ha!)
With my “jump-start” outline I write a quick and dirty first draft. At this point, I have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t as far as plot, characters, etc. Now, I get into serious outlining. More detail on all the above, and even a chapter by chapter outline. What will happen next, next, next.
I better define the characters in terms of personality and interactions with each other. I refine their conflicts. I add details to the settings.
Then I start again. Read the new draft out loud, cringe and re-write. Test the chapters out in my critique group, cringe and re-write. I don’t usually re-outline unless the book isn’t working as a whole.
Hopefully, that first “jump-start” is all I need. Ideas welcome.
I’ve found Scrivener to be enormously helpful as a Writer’s tool to segment these outline components, be able to reorder them, expand them while maintaining the title as a movable outline row or 3 X 5 card element. And it’s all with lots of links, meta data attachments, status indicators and color coded key words, for $45! Mac or windows. Really a superior piece of software at an unreasonably reasonable price. (Trial available for free.) Many 3rd party books from $0.99 to $15.00 with hand holding instructions plus a superior manual. Current version is 2.6.
Thanks for the recommendation, David!
I’ve been contemplating Scrivener – some of my writer friends use it. Maybe my next book! Thanks, David!
Lynne, since I don’t outline my books, I do something similar to you, which I call a Timeline. It’s a timeline of the action steps that have to take place in order to move the plot forward, and includes notes about the characters’ story arc and what needs to happen. Or course before I start writing I do research on place and write out ‘histories’ of my characters. As I begin each chapter, I check my timeline to see if I need more than one chapter to make the transition to the next action step – sometimes I need multiple chapters to cover all the aspects of character arc, etc. This allows me the freedom to expand my characters as needed and yet keep a focus on the ending and where I’m heading without wandering off track on a different storyline!
Great ideas, Indy. I’ve never used any formal program. Thanks.
Thanks for the tips.I have so many story ideas in my head & wasn’t sure how to get started but this helps a lot.
So glad, Marci. You never know what will work unless you try. Good luck.
Sure. Of course. It’s the most helpful & useful software tool for writers I’ve ever seen. Compared to Word, it’s far easier to manage the growth & construction of a novel w/Scrivener. Contour, Persona, Truby Blockbuster all do different, useful things. I don’t know of another product out there that does what Scrivener does, and, at the risk of repetition, it’s so useful I don’t understand why no one else has done it before. If you give it a look, you won’t be disappointed. (I have no relationship with the company or its employees. Although I plan on writing an nice note to the developer, Keith Blount, a Brit who’s enormously talented. I speak with some knowledge here, as I used to program
Mac OS X and iOS devices. To put him and me in perspective, I’m working on a partially finished outline for a first novel. Blount’s Stephen King.)
This is a private note from me to you. No need or desire for it to be posted. Thanks, David S.
Thanks, David.