How I outline my novels
As I've decided to give up on my query process for my previous manuscript, it's time to start working on a new novel. So here are my tips to outline a novel.
How do you outline your novel so that all your ideas fall into place nicely? So that you can track your progress as you start writing it?
It took me 10 years of trials and errors, different processes, but I’ve finally mastered outlining mynovels. That’s how I went from writing the story in my notebook to having my first novel published. I
Outlining a novel means writing down what happens in it, section by section or chapters by chapters if your book has chapters.
When I wrote my first novel, I didn’t know much about outlining. My process was to write down a brief summary of the different actions chapter by chapter.
The Google docs method: You create a Google doc, write different sections depending of the chapters that you have and you start filling in the action for each section. This one has it’s pros and cons. The pros is that it is straight forward, easy to apply. The cons is that if you write a very complex novel, outlining it in a couple of sentence won’t be enough to structure the novel. I used the google docs outlining method for my first novel and it worked well. After attending film school, where I learned so much about film structure and the 3 act and 5 act story structure, I started using the 3 act and 5 act structure for my scripts and my novels too.
The three act structure: it was popularized by the writer Syd Field in his 1979 book called Screenplay: the foundations of storytelling. It has been used in films, tv and theatre, it’s a model used in narrative fiction. If there’s anything you should take from it is that there’s a beginning, middle and end. The first act introduces the characters, the world they live in and their everyday lives. The conflict is introduced as the inciting incident, that stops the character from achieving their goals. In the second act, the stakes are raised. There are elements that stops the characters from achieving their goals.Things in many ways get worse, as if the writers sat down and deciding to think about the worst things that could happen to their character…and made this things happen in the story.
There’s usually a first plot point, which is called the point of no return. Once the characters go past it, they can’t go back.
There’s a midpoint half way through the movie. This is usually a bittersweet moment for the hero who believe sthey have it all figured and will reach their goal. However, something happens that actually makes thing worse.
The last act, act Three brings a resolution to the story: either there’s a failure or the goal is achieved. No matter what, there is a need for a resolution.
The climax is the most important moment of the story, this is where the final battle appears, where the hero believes that all is lost and has to give it one last try.
Personally, I hate the three act structure. It has never worked for any of my scripts or novels and I wouldn’t advise you to use it. My reason are that the three act structure is too vague and it’s very difficult to find a story that fits neatly into this structure. it create arbitrary divisions in the story that are hardly applicable without move things or changing your plot points. In addition, it is antithesis to the nature of novel writing, which aims to tell fictional stories using words nad is not bound by structure. In other words, novel writing offers writers more freedome when it comes to bending the rules and telling stories outside of conventions. Some novels, for example, play with time and are not linear. Other novels use unreliable narrator. Other novels are told from multiple point of views. You can’t use the three act structure in this case, because it makes for formulaic stories that removes the artistry of the genre.
Then, I decided to use another structure called the 5 act structure, used a lot in plays. It was popularized by John Yorke in his book Into the woods and inspired by Aristotle’s Poetics.
The five act structure: Composed of the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
Act I or Exposition is where you introduce the main characters and backstory. Sometimes, the writer will foreshadowing the rising action ( foreshadowing is introducing an element in the story before it’s is properly explained or shown in a xway that give the audience a better understanding. Let’s use the example of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. In act 1, the capulets and Montagues live in Verona and hate each other.
Act II is the Rising action. The conflicts appears and goes crescendo, leading to the climax., the conflict begins to increase as the characters try to achieve their goals and the narrative builds toward the climax. In Romeo and Juliet, act II is when Romeo and Juliet fall in love and decide to get married.
Act III: Climax. The third act contains the climax, the moment where the tension reaches its peak in a major scene. Freytag thought of the third act as the turning point rather than the culmination of action—the story’s midpoint where things begin to change and usher in the “counterplay.” Some modern writers delay the “climactic moment” until later in the story—usually act four—or instead opt for a three-act structure. In Romeo and Juliet, act III is when Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin kills Mercutio, Romeo’s friend. Romeo avenges his friend and kills him but he has to run away.
Act IV: Falling action. The elements of act four—also called the falling action—include the series of events that lead to the resolution. Freytag emphasized the importance of a feeling of “final suspense” in the fourth act, a moment in which the audience experiences doubt about their expectations of how the story will unfold.In Romeo and Juliet, act IV is when Juliet’s parents force her to marry Paris. Juliet and the priest decide to fake her death so that she can run away with Romeo. Romeo is supposed toget a letter detailing the plan but he never receives it. When he learns Juliet has supposedly died, he comes back to see her.
Act V: Resolution. The final act is the end, resolution, or denouement of the story. Here, you should tie up loose ends and bring the narrative to a close, writing either a tragic or happy ending. Freytag called the fifth act “the catastrophe,” the point in a tragedy where most of the characters die. In Romeo and Juliet, act V is when Romeo kills himself in front of her “body” as Juliet wakes up. Seeing that her lover as died, she kills herself too. The two families, grieving deeply, decide to end their rivalry.
If you write scripts and plays, this one is for you. I use it for my scripts. If you want to write very formulaic novels this one is also for you.
There’s also a method called kishotenketsu that was popularized by Hayao miyazaki in his film Kiki’s delivery service. This is one of my favorite structure. if you want me to tell you more about it, let me know in the comments and I’ll make a video on the diffferent story structures.
Lastly, there’s the post it method.
The post its method: It’s fairly simple, using post its, you write down in each post-its two lines: the first one describe an action the character does that moves the story forward and it’s consequences. If, for exemple, you write the story of a baker who wants to become the best baker in the world, one action would be going to culinary school. The other line is the emotional reason why the character does this action. If we use the example of the baker, maybe he wants to become the best baker in the world because growing up his father belittled him and the food he made. You write down each action from the beginning of the story to the very end and you stick them on a wall. You live them there for a night or a couple of days, then you come back and you mix them all together. From then, have a look and see if the story still makes sense. If it does, maybe you should tell your story in this new order. or maybe you should try to mix things up a little. I use the post it method for each of my stories, novels and scripts and I find it freeing because I can turn it into whatever story I want to.
For example, at the moment I am working on my new novel divided in two parts, with two characters benign the main POV for each part. Using the post-it method, I write down the themes I want to explore in the novel (feminism, maternity, cults, family, abusive relationship). I write thses down on post its.
Then I write down where my first main character is at the beginning of the novel and where I want her to be at the end of the novel. Then, to fill the gaps, I write down each action she does, why and the emotional state she is in. That way I can clearly determine her character development and how much she changes or doesn’t at the end of the story. Then I use the same method for the second part of the novel.
That’s it!