30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips – Day 4 Beginning to Outline Your Story
(If you missed Post 1 of Writing Tips, it’s here.)
If the thought of outlining makes you freeze up so you can’t even write a grocery list, (*raises hand*) you’ve come to the right place. I’ve learned to outline in small basic steps because I’ve never going to be one of those people who sees the whole story before I begin to write it. My brain just doesn’t work that way.
What I can do is break it down into something simple so I can at least start writing instead of staring at a blank computer screen forever. First, I list:
Main Character:
Character’s ordinary World:
The inciting event that changes their ordinary world:
What the main character now needs to overcome:
That’s the basics and usually the easy part. It’s filling in enough of the rest of the story to make it both long enough and interesting enough to keep the reader reading so we have to start thinking about the other barricades or setbacks that the character will encounter as the story progresses and as they are trying to solve that major problem.
Start brainstorming with a simple list. Jot down all possibilities that could make it difficult for your main character to triumph in the end.
Timeout for a cat picture first!
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Okay, back to work. For example, if the villain has stolen an important object, lots of things could make it difficult for the main character to get that object back: For example, the object could be in a building surrounded by a moat full of genetically enhanced alligators. And if your character manages to get across that, they will of course run into bad guy minions with super sensitive hearing. And if your character gets beyond that, the object is in a secure room with a security system that will vaporize anyone moving within 6 feet of it.
But if you aren’t writing an action thriller, Mission Impossible-type story, here’s a bunch of other ideas, some of which should work for most stories:
Character’s illness or injury
Character’s own doubts or fears. More about this in another post.
Ordinary physical limitations-for example an ordinary person has a hard time climbing a steep mountain.
Lack of money! A big one.
Lack of food, sleep, water.
Lack of a safe place to live.
Lack of transportation, either no transportation, not the right kind, or whatever they are using breaks down.
Other people either trying to stop the main character or competing to get to the same goal.
Weather! Blizzards, floods, avalanches, extreme heat, extreme cold.
Random creatures or bad people character may stumble upon. Let’s say your character has enough money but then gets robbed because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A lost or stolen map or directions or something else main character needs to get to a place or to find something.
Other characters not necessarily standing in their way, but not believing them or not helping them. Or a situation in which the main character must lie or not tell the whole truth either to protect someone or so they can do what they need to do. A very common barricade in middle grade fiction would be those pesky parents not wanting kids to do something dangerous.
A secondary character who needs help and because of that ties up some of the main character’s freedom of action
Wartime, or government restrictions on movement.
The need for some sort of identification which the character does not have.
I’m sure there are any more. Either from this list or your own ideas, pick four.
Now write up a few sentences with more detail about how exactly these difficulties are going to cause problems for your characters given your specific plot.
Once you finish that, write a couple of sentences about how your character might overcome each difficulty. These ideas aren’t set in stone. Often the ideas I have initially change as I start writing and other ideas pop into my head. This is just a starting point and once you develop your character more, their own skills and talents will come into play in terms of overcoming these difficulties. Doing this list may help you envision what kind of character you need to better fit the plot.
Now order these four from least dramatic to most dramatic, because you want the most exciting parts near the end of the book, as you are trying to rachet up the tension.
To recap, list:
Main character:
Their ordinary world:
The inciting event/problem that changes their ordinary world and will move them to action:
What the main character wants after they encounter the inciting event:
Barriers to the main character succeeding and how they will overcome:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Number 4 can be the last barrier or event before they succeed. Once you start writing, you may add in many more, but remember this is just to get you started.
We still need to cover the stakes, the idea of a ticking clock and the character’s own internal journey, but those are all for other posts. Like I said earlier, it’s less overwhelming if you break it down in small steps.
I’m going to take my own advice and do this for my work-in-progress, which right now is mainly only in my head.
And a reminder, here’s my YA sci fi space adventure:
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