Kindle Notes & Highlights
Break your Story Pitch for your POV characters into the three act structure and then rewrite them
to be a basic synopsis for your story.
Don’t let the synopsis get more than a page long and if there are any extra special twists, beats, or revelations that yo...
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amazing. Screenplays live and die by structure and how they are used. You aren’t writing a screenplay.
To ease the readers into my world, I’m going have Carter as the anchor of the story. He will be the first POV in the book and we won’t cut away to another POV until Carter has met that character.
Idea for my novel. I will use Bella's POV and not cut away till she meets Steel.
easy. The hardest part will be deciding what should happen in the middle.
“What is stopping my POV character from achieving their Big Want?”
With a Sequence Outline our goal is to smooth out those beats so that they transition into each other.
For the sake of the next few chapters, consider a scene to be a part of the story with a set time and location.
single ...
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be two scenes.
A sequence is a group of related scenes.
When creating your Sequence Outline the cuts between scenes may not be as clear.
Don’t forget, Wrath of Dragons is epic fantasy. The novel will be over a hundred thousand words and so I will have more sequences and scenes in it than you most likely will in your novel.
personalize the sequences by giving them names.
Note to self: Give each one names based on characters, action, and scene.
A subplot is any story thread that is
unrelated
For my novel, the romance aspect.
to the POV character getting ...
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The bigger and longer your novel is the more room you’ll have for a subplot.
subplot. It’s not part of the main story. It’s extra story. That’s why subplots can be tricky to handle. It’s adding extra padding to a story.
Tough to handle
Subplots don’t have to be side stories with side characters either.
That’s the secret for making subplots work. They have to have a sense of progression.
Does the subplot reveal character? Does the subplot add or contrast to the theme? Does it offer any other insight about the story, world, or characters to the reader?
If you answer “no” to all three of those questions then consider not including the subplot or adjusting the subplot so that it does one of those things.
The whole strategy for outlining is to start big with your overall concept and then, bit by bit, narrow down the story by making choices that will reveal more details.
What you need to do now is take each of the scenes from your Scene List and figure out the elements that must happen in them.
SCENE #: This number refers to the order in which a scene will appear in your novel. SCENE NAME: This is a short-hand way that you will use to refer to, and remember, the scene. POV: This is the name of the point-of-view character for the scene. If you plan to have multiple POV characters for a single scene, then for now just list each of those incidents as separate scenes. SYNOPSIS: This is a brief synopsis of what you plan to have happen in the scene.
LOCATION: This is where the scene will be set. When possible try to include any unique specifics about this location. STORY BEAT: This is the reasoning on how this scene moves your story forward. CHARACTER BEAT: This is the reasoning on how this scene either reveals character or moves forward a character arc. OPENING: How your scene will start. POV’S IMMEDIATE WANT: This is the thing they want right now in the scene. If they have multiple wants, list them. POV’S LONG WANT: For many scenes this
will be your POV character’s Big Want, but in earlier scenes it might be something different or something tied to their character arc. INTERNAL CONFLICT: This is any internal conflict they are experiencing during the scene. EXTERNAL CONFLICT: This is any external conflict that they experience during the scene. READER REACTION: T...
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scene. NOTES: Room for other notes...
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reader. If you are newer to writing novels, I suggest you try to make sure every scene on your Scene List has either external conflict or internal conflict.
If your outline doesn’t match your Story Pitch you need to ask yourself why. What changed?
Now is when you want to have to go back and re-do your outline because it’s a hundred times easier to tweak an outline than it is to rewrite 50,000 to 100,000 words.
Decide your POV characters and what kind of arc they will or won’t have. Write a Story Pitch for your novel. Prepare for reader expectations.
Make a List of Awesomeness. Write a basic synopsis of your novel. Fill out the Beat Sheet for your novel. Create a Sequence Outline. Decide upon any subplots that you wish to include. Break your Sequence Outline into a Scene List. Make the Scene Outline. Compare your Scene Outline to your Story Pitch.
Your outline is not a finished product. It is not set in stone.
Once you get into writing and you are moving from scene to scene or from chapter to chapter, you need to continue to listen to your gut and personal taste.
Any story you tell will have a theme. That’s
If your novel has any kind of character arc, character with flaws, or an ending that is either happy or sad, then themes already exist in it. It may not be a big theme, but it is there.
The more subtle you want the theme, the less it should be touched upon and might only creep in via a bit of deep point-of-view prose or a subplot.
That’s good and that makes sense, but you should also devote time to figuring out who your supporting characters are.
Your supporting characters need to have lives of their own.
List out your main supporting cast members and figure out their wants and if they should have any subplots.
Art is subjective and sometimes a reader will connect in a way that you never would have thought.
No matter what your outline says, always trust your characters first.
The act of world building is populating the world your
characters exist in to create a sense of reality so that the readers think it might be real.
World building is creating the set where that story will take place.
The best part of reaching out to experts in any field is that a lot of times they are excited to talk about it.
about, I’d start with questions like these:
