How to write down a plot outline

[Camilo]

So I have a question, how do you lay out a long-term plot? When I write, I just write with no road map whatsoever and it develops as I write. I usually write, but scenes. Once I have a scene in mind, I can quickly write it. The hard part is thinking of the scene and connecting it to the previous one. I was wondering how to write down, actually sketch out, a "master plan" for a story? A plan that I can just follow and stick to, make my life easier

[Amelia]

Somebody with more experience and knowledge than, please help him!!! Perks is out there somewhere, help Cam get to it!

[Boy In Doubt]

I'm no Obi-Wan of fiction writing, but I'd be more than happy to share a few tips.

 

Usually when I brainstorm ideas for my story, I like to picture random scenes in my head that I intend to write at some point. They aren't always in chronological order but if I find myself wanting an event to occur later in the story (a car crash, for example), I open a word file and type the event, the chapter number and the characters involved. Something like this:

 

CHAPTER 6 - (Character) drives off a cliff

 

That's just to give you an idea where your story may be heading. Nothing has to be set in stone, though. To connect scenes together, I personally like drawing web diagrams on a notepad (because I pace around a lot when I brainstorm). I find that this helps me see the bigger picture and allows me to plan ahead without killing my muse. Here's an example (do not take it seriously):

 

Angel is a vampire--->Xander is in love with Angel--->Angel gets smacked by an old lady with a rolling pin--->Angel gets pretty banged up--->Xander shows up at Angel's place with flowers--->Angel attempts to bite Xander--->Xander drives off in terror--->Old lady crosses the road and causes Xander to swerve to the left and drive off a cliff--->THE END

 

Now obviously that was just a fake plot. It makes absolutely no sense but you get the idea, right? If we hadn't mentioned (or at least alluded to) the fact that Angel was a vampire in the beginning, it wouldn't have made sense for him to want to eat Xander after getting smacked around by the old lady.

 

Also, it's good to have at least a vague idea of the ending in mind. If, let's say, you decide to end a story with a lesbian taking a pregnancy test and finding out she's pregnant, there has to be a point in the story where she's done something to make the pregnancy test scene believable. Is she a surrogate? Has she been with a man at least once? Has she and her partner planned to get artificially inseminated? This way you'd know what events should occur for the story to progress logically and realistically. She can't get pregnant without having done any of the above. Unless, of course, you're writing the Bible.

 

I personally use plot outlines because they help me stay organized but if it's not your thing, remember that many authors get by without it. So whichever works for you.

 

Good luck and have fun planning!

[darkfoxprime]

I write the same way Camilo writes. A lot of the time, the characters decide what they're doing and all I can do is try to keep up on the keyboard - even when the story goes where I didn't want it to.

 

I keep trying to write outlines for my stories, and keep failing. Every time I try to write down notes about what I want to happen in the future, I either get completely bogged down in tracking down little tiny details ... or I end up trying to write the story rather than an outline.

 

of course, this means I get bogged down partway through stories because I have no idea how to take them from where they are to where I want them to be.

[Nephylim]

I write totally spontaneously and I never sketch out a plot.

[gabrielsknife]

For the most part, I try to be as versatile as I can be when I write. I'll either start out with the first "section" or I'll jump around and type up three to five wide "sections" before my muse tires out.

 

However, with my larger stories/pre-novels, I've written up rather elaborate outlines to fit the chapters together. I'm bad about jumping around, even with the big stories lol. What I'll do is write out the chapter name/number, then give a brief detail of the action. If I've already written it, it looks like this:

 

Chapter One -Michael Derringer is dying somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness - After leaving his [pimp] / ex in [Virginia], he hops the first, one-way flight to Alaska, the farthest place he could afford that still spoke English - [He had no money, and only a suitcase full of clothes]

⁃ His plane crashed in the [brooks Mountain Range] - [he was trapped between seats on the left-hand side of the plane - Survivors had to pull him free to save him - Both of his legs are fragmented and slightly burned - his left arm is burned and torn - he maintains cuts along his left side from where the seats clamped down on him]

⁃ While Miki's waiting to die, Night and Elder [Day's bearer] have left the valley and slowly head down the mountain slope - [Elder senses his successor is near - Night doesn't realize what's going on until Elder puts the Day Stone inside Miki's chest] - Night refuses to leave his alpha with the humans until Elder demands it

⁃ Night takes Miki to the valley

 

I have it colour coded with symbols and brackets telling me what I should know (as the writer) and what the audience should think or what they'll find out later. The parts I haven't yet written generally look more like this:

 

-

- Miki sees Night sleeping in puppy form - Miki pulls a blanket over him and cuddles a bit to keep him warm - When Night wakes up, he sees how close Miki is and is very, very happy

-

 

They're very...uh...broad, in case there's more action between what I have here and what ends up happening in the chapter. I have enough room where I can put more chapters in if I need to, or I can take potential chapters out.

 

Depending on how large your story/novel is, this might or might not work for you. Unless it's a multi-chapter novel, I find it much easier to keep all my notes in my head. For "Gone Hunting", my largest single story, most of my story notes are in my head. I write down things like language or racial notes - but the action is pretty well kept between my ears. With that in mind, I have to go back and re-read "sections" so I don't repeat information. I also lean on my readers a little and ask them to tell me if they see any flaws in the work.

 

Some things you might want to try are:

 

- Check-list: write up a check-list of "scenes" or ideas that you want a certain idea to possess

- Example:

- Intro Miki (tell about accident)

- Intro Night and Elder (stay general, desc. Night more then Elder)

- May (helper), priest (voice of reason), doctor (desc. wounds, temptation)

- Desc. Miki's love of dogs/animals and *something* of BG, not all

- Summary: take a paragraph to describe story action (this is best for short stories instead of novels, given the size difference between the two)

- Example: Top Hat's finally gotten into Black Talon's Hideout. He debilitates the master computer (with many sexual innuendos here). When Black Talon wakes up and finds himself handcuffed to the table, Top Hat attempts to "break him down". This only works so much before Black Talon throws it back at Top Hat. Verbal debate becomes physical; sex ensues and leads to a happy? ending.

 

All in all, I'm a strong believer in the "just do it" philosophy. If you write in "chunks" like I do, then there's not much helping that. Trying to fit yourself into a more organized way of writing, then you might end up frustrating yourself in the long run. Just let yourself tickle your fingers across the keyboard and let the ideas/characters/setting come to you. Not every story was meant to be thrown into a single cookie-cutter frame.

[Graeme]

I generally don't write down an outline, because my stories are not complex enough to need them.

 

HOWEVER, one key thing I've learnt is to know where the story is headed. That helps ensure you don't write yourself into a corner. The ending of the story doesn't have to be fixed (you might have several possible endings in mind), but by having some idea of where the story ends, you can make sure that the general direction of story is still in that direction.

 

Another hint I was given is that when writing a chapter, keep in mind what you'd like to happen in the next chapter. Again, it helps keep the story on track because each chapter leads into the next one. That won't necessarily work for everyone (and I'm guilty of ignoring that at times), but I think it's a good recommendation if you can do it.

[CarlHoliday]

I've tried to outline long stories, but it seems so constraining to have to follow a plan of attach to get from point A to point Z.

 

What I usually do for long stories is to write as much as I can around point A and the go to my intended point B and write alot leading up to that point. Then its a matter of going back and filling in the middle.

 

When I first started writing for online posting I wrote chapters at a time, trying to keep ahead of the wave, but often having it wash over me and leave my readers waiting. Now, I try to write the whole story beginning to end. I may end up being off line for a period of time, but at least I'm not pressured to produce a new chapter next week.

 

But, back to the outline method. Look at your story in brief, maybe one sentence, bits that described what you want to occur along the path of your story. Once you have the outline from A to Z, go back and start filling in the blanks. You have to remember, though, that you're following a plot plan to point Z and can't get distracted by a character who wants to go down to the mall because there's this hot clerk at A&F. You can allow this, but you have to go ahead in your previous outline and see where this character comes back in line, if at all.

 

To me, though, there's more freedom in following the flow of the characters and see how they're going to get it in the end.

[Krista]

Just don't try to overwhelm yourself with what you think your story needs in the first place. When I outlined a few of my stories, it would take a lot of chapters and a lot of extra writing to get some of the stuff in there. Outlines can be very detrimental to a story that way its best not to put a whole lot in them, keep them open for changes as well. The minute you set something in stone you're hurting your chance at completing the story as we change our mind, changing the story all the time.

 

All I do is make mini profiles of all of my characters so that I can keep track of them while I'm writing about them. Example: If I'm writing a high school story, I need their class schedule, their age, their parents, a brief outline of their house, room, etc.

 

After I have all of my characters profiled (stats), I don't put a lot of depth into their personalities.. I may put.. "bitchy," or "a good listener" in the profile, but not much else. Anyway, after I have them profiled, I try to list the main parts, or transition scenes I know I want in the story, the whole purpose of me writing the story.. that's it. I don't focus on little scenes, I don't even know what those are..

 

Then I start the story and I don't really look back at the outline after I make it.. lol. It should just be for reference anyway, I think. If the story changes a lot from the outline, it doesn't mean you did a bad job.. it just means that the story took you in a different direction.

 

Put all your research in the outline.. if you need to do a lot of research for the story.. just to keep it all in one specific place.

[PrivateTim]

I use Excel spreadsheets because they have multi tabs. I'll keep my Cast on one tab, when were they born, how tall, what color hair, what color eyes, etc. It is amazing when you are in Chapter 7 and you try to remember what color hair or eyes someone had in an earlier chapter.

 

Another tab holds the outline and timeline to maintain continuity, it has what month, what year, what major actions occur and what chapter it happens in, which is also helpful to go back and review a scene as you write a new one.

 

Other tabs can hold miscellaneous information that is relevant, description of locations, rooms, etc so you stay consistent.

[John Doe]

I use Excel spreadsheets because they have multi tabs. I'll keep my Cast on one tab, when were they born, how tall, what color hair, what color eyes, etc. It is amazing when you are in Chapter 7 and you try to remember what color hair or eyes someone had in an earlier chapter.

 

Another tab holds the outline and timeline to maintain continuity, it has what month, what year, what major actions occur and what chapter it happens in, which is also helpful to go back and review a scene as you write a new one.

 

Other tabs can hold miscellaneous information that is relevant, description of locations, rooms, etc so you stay consistent.

 

 

With office '07 you can do all that on word too. Well you could with earlier versions but it's easier to nagivate '07. Here's my spread sheet that I created for my story: Mages of the Academy

 

Character Name.pdf

 

I can just press tab until it reaches the end of row and it auto creates a new row... or right click and select to create a new column or row either before or after the selection i choose. Very nifty and I also like it better an excel because I have custom dictionaries that I use with word that can seek out misspelled words for me, especially since I make up a lot of names and such (which I add to the custom dictionary). It annoys me not to be able to tell if something is misspelled and to have my whole document underlined in red squggleys (< totally misspelled)

 

Oh and yes I guess this would be considered a sneak peek at my story since a few minor details are revealed in that pdf.

[Hylas]

I'm weird. Probably the reason why I have never successfully completed a novel/novella length story LOL. But I will hopefully, with my new story which has a solid plot outline (unlike my earlier abandoned attempts).

 

You see. the way I think of the story is very visual. They often occur to me while seeing something, a hot guy, a flower, a piece of poetry, a song. I come up with a scene. Just one scene which I really really like. This usually works for short stories very easily. An example is my story Downpour.

 

 

It began simply as a daydream about two guys professing undying love in the rain. LOL

From that one scene I came up with a short story.

 

But yeah, I soon realized that for longer stories I needed more planning. One scene and trying to make up things as I go along to get to that scene doesn't work as well as I thought it would.

 

Recently I discovered that I can make a plot from those little scene snapshots. I build on that scene. Adding new ones, making up backgrounds. Figuring what happens before and after. If it's good enough to be the climactic scene or just as something somewhere in the main body of the story. The important thing is to never make a 'oh I'll figure that out later' decision. LOL. Everything must tie up. If one scene is in a boat and another in a plane, you must plan for a way to explain how they got from the boat to the plane. And another thing, never be afraid to revise the plot when you think of something else to make the scenes fit better together. It's YOUR story, it's your world, you are god in it.

 

My plot outlines usually start out as a list of a few scene ideas I had come up with.

 

e.g.

1. Character discovers that his neighbor is an alien.

2. Character kills evil aliens and dies heroically.

 

Then I build on it. Add more scenes to tie the two together

 

1. Character sees neighbor do strange things.

2. Character discovers neighbor is alien.

3. Character observes neighbor, discovers he has plans to take over the world.

4. Character reports it to parents.

5. Discovers parents are aliens as well.

6. Discovers everyone in his town are aliens.

7. Discover he is a hybrid human/alien.

8. War!

9. Character kills evil aliens and die heroically. Humans go on with their daily lives unaware of the fact that someone who isn't quite human had just saved them.

 

Notice how the story now is slowly taking form. Those become the seeds for chapters. Also note that you can shuffle around the sequence if you want. For example if you want the character to find out his parents are aliens BEFORE he discovers his neighbors are, you can. The next step is I turn the sentences into paragraphs of the scene. A sort of summary of a chapter. Example for number 7, I might put in:

 

Original: 7. Discover he is a hybrid human/alien.

 

More detailed: 7. Character is hiding inside a barn. A little girl who is not a little girl discovers him, she is actually the deadliest form of the aliens. He is captured and taken to the buried spaceship under the town. There he is confined to a stasis field for several days. Sees other humans in experiment chambers including the homeless man he had befriended earlier in the story. They had done horrible things to the man. Then his 'parents' come and visit him. He discovers in shock that he is an experiment on hybridization which the aliens decided to scrap. His mom and dad tell him that he is still part alien and invites him to join them. He refuses and breaks free. He discovers he is far more powerful than the aliens.

Do the same for all the other chapters. Notice how it makes a nice little story now. You can even decide to split 7 into TWO chapters. One about his capture and the other about his discovery of his hybrid status. You can even change significant parts of the story if you think it will benefit the story more. For example you can make him a full alien instead of a hybrid. You can repeat this process if you want. Adding in more details to make the actual writing a little easier and the story flow a little smoother. Depends on how finicky you are.

 

By now you have a workable outline. You can start writing while keeping to your guide. It's not as easy as that though. There are still the basic things you need to remember when writing. Like your characters' backgrounds and descriptions (which earlier posters have touched on), the setting, the hook, the conflict, the climax, etc. These are all things you need to put into your outline as well. Because without them you don't have a story. These however rely more on your creativity and research skills. You can google tips on how to make these parts work. But yeah once you have those figured out, you can make the plot in the way I outlined earlier. And again, do note that it is YOUR story. You control what happens. Don't be afraid to change the plot even after everything has been done. You might come across a eureka moment later on while writing a chapter that will make your story go another (hopefully better) way.e.g.

 

The hero meets a girl, they survive and becomes humanity's secret alien superhero duo guardian thingy, protecting Earth from a hostile universe.

 

I don't pretend to have expertise in this btw. LOL. I'm also only just starting to get into writing plots, heh. But that is how I do it, hope that helps.

[Forty-Two]

 

HOWEVER, one key thing I've learnt is to know where the story is headed. That helps ensure you don't write yourself into a corner. The ending of the story doesn't have to be fixed (you might have several possible endings in mind), but by having some idea of where the story ends, you can make sure that the general direction of story is still in that direction.

 

 

I think this is the most important point.

 

 

Personally, I come up with random plot bits and character development as I'm going about my daily life, then when enough builds I start to write it all down in short form so I don't forget it. Then I string it together in a sensible order and fill in any research that needs to be done or gaps in plot. When I write I keep things open - so many more details and better ideas come through during the writing process, so definitely don't restrict yourself from writing before the outline is finished. If you can see EXACTLY how you want a scene to go, write it down while its fresh and then worry about writing the before and after later.

 

If I were to be formulaic, I would say write down all the major plot points first. Then fill in the details. Then expand into chapter outlines. Work from a short list of the the biggest stuff until you get to the long list of all the big and little stuff. But never be afraid to change it around or cut stuff out as you write.

 

In general, you just have to practice and write and write until you figure out what works and what doesn't for you. Everyone here could have a very good way of doing (or not doing) an outline, but none of those ways could be right for you (or all of them could work - who knows!)

 

Good luck!