Category: Plotting & Outlines

Essential blueprinting for your fiction enterprise.

The Extended Forecast

r-avatarWell, we’re about 50,000 words into the new project now, and we’re humming right along. This first draft is going to be enormous!

Our rapid progress is aided by a thorough outline, and by the stubs Jen makes from it. The giant tangled ball of barbed wire that was the timeline has been straightened and smoothed, and we now have a stockpile of about 20 stubs. That will translate into 20 or so scenes.

Now that the roughest part is behind her, Jen is tempted to steam ahead and make stubs for the rest of the novel. It’s a temptation she’s going to resist though, because a novel in progress is a living, breathing thing, prone to wanting to do things its own way. When it has two authors, that tendency is even greater.

In much the same way that a weather forecast isn’t terribly reliable more than a few days in advance, our stubs lose their relevancy if we make them too soon. Small changes accumulate as the stubs are turned into prose, and that accumulation can lead to the necessity to course-correct. Or to decide to go in another direction. A character’s motivations and personality become clearer as they are written, and actions that made sense in the abstract no longer do when the ink hits the paper.

Jen has already been forced to update some of the stubs that led into the giant ball of barbed wire, and she would rather not have to repeat the process. The second half of the book will wait patiently for us to work our way through the current stub inventory, and if we drift too far off course, we’ll talk together about how to get back on track.

We have a long car trip coming up, so that will be a great time to hash it all out.

Onward and Upward

r-avatarIt seems like every time we write a novel, we hit a point  in the plot where things get thorny. On our first one, which we began without an outline, we got completely derailed for about six months.

Kent is working on a theory (because that’s what he does) that what we’re running into is somehow a fundamental aspect of big, complex projects. He mutters about how it’s like spinning plates, but he wants to come up with something more original. Whether it’s a universal thing or specific to the Rune Skelley experience, it’s certainly a consistent fact of writing life for us.

It’s been less of a problem on our recent novels, though, for two reasons. One: now we’ve got a good process based on tools like outlines and stubs. Two: we’ve learned how to work more effectively as a team.

We’re at that point again, in case you were wondering. It’s the timeline that’s turned into a thorny thicket this time. Lots of throughlines intersect, and it’s a real puzzle to get them not to conflict. Jen is the Goddess of Puzzles and has this one nearly solved, but it’s a huge task. Progress on the manuscript has barely been affected though, because while Jen weaves our characters’ trajectories on her cosmic loom, Kent can keep working on prosifying the existing stubs.

Teamwork! It keeps us moving onward and upward.

Plotline Evolution

r-avatarDwight Eisenhower said that plans are useless but planning is essential. So it is with outlining a novel and then actually writing it.

The outline says certain events will happen in a certain order, but then while writing the scenes it doesn’t feel right, so small adjustments have to be made. Those little changes add up along the way, and sometimes the plot moves off in a totally unexpected direction. If you have a solid outline, you’ll probably be able to swerve around obstacles and get things back on course. Or, perhaps you’ll opt to pursue the new path you’ve found along the way.

There’s another level where things can evolve under your fingertips. The general shape of the events might not change, but you still end up with a radically different story than the one you thought you’d set out to tell.

Does the propulsion come from wondering who the villain will kill next, or from trying to figure out who the killer is? The same basic tale can be flipped between these states by a single critical detail: whether or not you tell the reader who the bad guy is. That decision could move your story to a different genre entirely, without even altering who kills whom.

What looks like a suitable source of action and tension in the outline might turn out not to fulfill its promise in prose. In a collaboration, this is something to talk through with your partner as it develops, especially if you’re divvying up the work and each writing a subset of the scenes. If you rely on the outline as the firm bedrock of your project, but your partner has made adaptations on the fly without telling you, then the whole first draft could fall apart halfway through.

But as always, there’s an upside to having a partner to help cope with the challenge. As long as you communicate you’ll avoid the catastrophe described above, and you’ll be able to brainstorm a solution that makes you both happy. Kent and Jen like to go for walks together, and use the time to discuss these kinds of shifts in the plot. How do you debug your outlines? What do you do when you feel the story pulling you down a different road?

Our Method For World Domination

Last week we promised to share our secret method for making sure every scene contains everything it needs to. That secret is…

Drumroll please…

Stubs. What an ugly little word for something so useful. A stub is, in the Rune Skelleyverse, an intermediate step between outline and prose. It’s a summary or synopsis of a scene. We talked at length about the importance of a thorough outline when working as a team. Now to transform your lavishly illustrated plans for world domination into a reality.

In Chez Skelley it’s Jen who creates the stubs for both of us to work from. She examines the outline and dissects it, breaking it down into scenes. For each scene she decides which character’s point of view is most appropriate or interesting, and then writes a brief overview of the action. She includes details like what characters are wearing, continuity items, and hidden motivations. There’s a lot of information in a stub that doesn’t appear in the finished scene, but instead goes toward making sure the author remembers why certain details are important. The stub also serves as a nice place to collect snippets of dialog or description that come up in email conversations or planning meetings, so that they aren’t forgotten.

Once a chunk of the novel has been stubbed, it becomes easy for either of us to choose which scene we’d like to work on next. The stubs all show precise starting and ending points so the writer knows exactly how their jigsaw piece will fit into the finished puzzle.

Jen likes this method because she’s something of a control freak, and this allows her to smear her grubby thumbprints all over the scenes she doesn’t write, even before the editing process.

Kent likes it because it makes his assignment crystal clear, and he knows that Jen won’t come along after he’s done, whining that he left something important out. At least not very often.

Stubs work well for a writing partnership, but they are probably of limited use for a solo author. They could be seen as a really early draft, useful for detecting plot holes and unnecessary scenes.

Do you use stubs? And if so, do you have a better name for them?

We <3 Outlines!

Kent made an interesting observation the other day. He speculated that when authors say they don’t like the outlining process, what they’re really saying is that they don’t like to be reminded of how much work is ahead of them. Novel writing is a lot of work, there’s no getting around it. But to us it makes all the sense in the world to start with a thorough outline. It may seem like an extra step, but it will save you a ton of time in the long run.

As we mentioned last time, we created a multicolored visual representation of our new plot and spent a few hours studying it. Then we went back to brainstorming and long conversations, and we discovered a new wrinkle for one of our characters, a wrinkle that we wanted to incorporate from the very beginning of the story. If we had simply plunged in and written the first draft, when we discovered that this guy needed a little something extra we would have needed to go back and rewrite all of his scenes. Since we’re taking the time to outline, all we had to do was replace a few of our dark green paper squares, and shuffle a few of the others around. Other characters got notes added to their squares where they intersected with Dark Green, et voila! — heartache, recriminations, and carpal tunnel syndrome averted. Go team!

Alas, the ending is still proving elusive. We have something sketched in that feels right, most of the time. Other times it feels too simple. This has led to an entire week of throwing possible endings back and forth at each other. Most are utter crap, but the ones that pass the first nose-wrinkle test get a full discussion. This entails referring to the plot rainbow so often that we’ve just left it out on the floor all week. We’ll need to pick it up before the Pulitzer Committee comes over for tea.

The Plot Thickens

Our walking conferences have continued (when the weather is suitable), and we spend most evenings camped out on the big leather sofa playing “what if.” The results are looking good. We have a plot that flows nicely from beginning, through the middle, and most of the way to the end.

A problem we dealt with on our previous novel was the fear that we did not have enough plot, and we’re grappling with that again. Since the last novel’s first draft wound up at 150,000 words, we’re trying not to worry too much this time. Chances are we do have enough story.

Once we talked through the arcs for all the characters, and sketched in their major actions, we switched from open-ended discussions to a more structured approach. Jen brought out the color-coded note pads (because Kent has a phobia about index cards) and assigned each character a color. Then she wrote out each character action, one per note, and Kent arranged them in a grid.

Kent’s grid quickly outgrew the ottoman, and he had to move to the floor. The sprawling patchwork rainbow of paper squares made a nice visual representation of the plot.

Each character had their own column, with the rows denoting the passage of time. Anytime characters interact, those actions go in the same row. This leaves blank areas when a character isn’t up to anything interesting, and it allowed us to see if we’re staying away from any story lines for too long.

Switching to a different, visual mode of brainstorming is a great way to spot inconsistencies or other problems lurking in what you’ve already come up with. It also has a way of lighting up the creative faculties, which can accelerate things and open up new avenues to explore. It’s a go-to methodology for getting unstuck.

We spent an evening studying the grid and making notes, and now we’re back to brainstorming to flesh out the thin spots. We will probably cycle through the process another time or two before we’re ready to write up an actual outline.

In a co-writing relationship it’s vital that the partners share an understanding of all aspects of plot and character so that they can write toward the same goal, seamlessly.

Tag! You’re It!

The Rune Skelley approach to collaboration is normally a very planned-out and measured type of experience. As we’ve said in earlier posts, we like to keep things structured.

Well, this week has been interesting, in that we’re operating in a decidedly more seat-of-the-pants mode. We do have an outline for what we’re doing, but as the words are falling out it’s become kind of a relay race. The chapter is a highly kinetic sequence made of short scenes and alternating points of view, so during a work session there has been a lot more “tag! you’re it!” than usual.

What it reminds me of is something I would normally not recommend as a way to write with a partner. We call them chain stories, and they’re a sort of game where the object is to build from where the other player just left off and throw the tale in an unexpected direction for the next player. As a game it’s a lot of fun, but the results are seldom coherent. So far though, we’re really getting good stuff and we’ve been very productive. It’s probably made easier because this is the last chapter of the third book in a series. We know these characters like they’re real people, and we know our target.

The lesson is, there’s no single correct way for writers to work together. If you get into a flow, if the “jazz” approach is working, then go with it!

Happy writing!

Huzzah for Outlines!

Some writers love outlines, some hate them, some simply acknowledge their usefulness. Whichever group you fall into when writing on your own, you’ll find that when you work with a writing partner, an outline is your new best friend.

There probably are successful collaborations that just wing it, but that way is inefficient. In order for both partners to write simultaneously, there needs to be an understanding of where the plot is going. An outline will be your guide, showing you where your scene should begin and where it should end so that it will mesh with the scene your partner is writing. The outline also helps you track your progress and manage your time (beneficial for a soloist, too). It helps you divvy up the work, because you can see which sections feature the elements that each partner has the right “touch” with.

A good friend of ours argues that outlining a story takes away all of the creativity and spontaneity. We say that’s just not true. An outline should only constrain your wildest impulses while still allowing you creative freedom. You know that your scene begins with your hero and heroine having breakfast at a diner and ends with one of them being kidnapped off the street. That leaves a lot of room in the middle for you to be as inventive as you want to be.

The conversations that lead up to the creation of the outline are where you get to go crazy. Brainstorm as many plot twists, character quirks, and complications as you want, then work with your writing partner to cull the best and shape them into a story you both love.

The level of detail in your outline will depend on the type of story you are writing, the number of characters you feature, and the needs of your collaboration. Don’t get hung up on formalities. There’s no reason to force your story into a traditional outline form, with roman numerals and multiple nested subsections. Do that if you want, or structure it more like a synopsis. It can be a series of short paragraphs, or one huge string of “and then this happens, and then this happens.” It can be as detailed or as sketchy as you and your writing partner want. The level of detail can even vary throughout. Perhaps there’s a big scene where you can picture in your mind exactly how everything happens. Go ahead and include all those delicious details in your outline. But if there’s a scene where all you know is that it gets your antagonist from Point A to Point B, that’s fine too. That’s where you (or your writing partner) will get to be creative later. And remember, you can always revise the outline as you write.