Outlining
Hi everyone,
I’ve been busy plotting my novel in plottr. I Plotted my novel once using excel and now I’m doing it again but in more detail in plottr. I’ve found telling myself the story again and again, helps me tighten my story. I have to say, that for me, using plottr as opposed to excel is more convenient and better suited to outlining because the information contained on the page is easier to see and scroll through. It also has places to put notes and character information that’s always just one click away.
My progress:
I’ve made quite a bit. I’ve got my story fully fleshed out up until the midpoint. This is the big turning point of the story. A false victory or a false defeat or in a love story, the thing that thrusts them into love.
I’ve stopped here because I want to be sure of my midpoint before moving forward. The reason I’m outlining is so that I don’t write the entire novel and then realize I need to write a new midpoint which will then result in a frankensteined 2nd half of the book. So, I’m brainstorming different midpoints, trying to be my own devil’s advocate. My second half outline is 2,000 words at most. And not painful to throw away. However, when it’s 40,000 words, I’ll bleed if I have an epiphany that my midpoint is entirely wrong for the story.
How am I brainstorming?
I’m using the theory that your first idea is not your best, so I’m coming up with as many midpoint ideas as I can. Some people plot all of the ideas until the end of the story and see which one is the best. I’d love to do that, but I’m not sure it’s something I have the patience for. But I am writing down the major beats for each idea with a one sentence description. That’s the best I can do.
Also, because I’m dealing with a midpoint—the beat in the story where the direction changes and the MC has a shift in agency—I did more research specifically into this beat.
I identified a few types of midpoints (I’m sure there are more but these are the ones that stood out to me).
1. An artifact/creature/person discovery that changes the story in some way. (PLOT)
2. Information about the villain changes things. For example, maybe the person the characters thought was the villain wasn’t. Or they didn’t know the identity of the villain before but now they know it’s their uncle Rob. (PLOT)
3. A shift from non-personal to personal stakes. They were fixing their car for fun, now they have to fix it because bad guys are on their way and it is their only means of escape. (STAKES)
4. Change in game rules/stakes. The plot goes from: this is inconvenient if it doesn’t work, to I’m going to die if it doesn’t. (PLOT/STAKES)
5. Personal epiphany: Internal change: I’m sabotaging myself. I need to stop. This is how I think I can manage that (they’re often wrong here about the solution). (INTERNAL)
6. Sink deeper into a trap or danger. They think they have just won but nope, this has just made everything ten times worse, they just don’t know it yet. False victory. (PLOT)
7. Someone dies (this can be a pet as well). Nothing is ever the same after a loved one dies. (PLOT/RELATIONSHIP)
8. A relationship changes. Enemies to friends, friends to enemies etc. (RELATIONSHIP)
9. Secret identity or secret revelation. It’s always fun to reveal a twisty bit of information either about a person pretending to be someone they’re not or change-the-plot information. (PLOT/RELATIONSHIP)
10. A change in stakes: personal to community: If I don’t achieve this I will die, to if I don’t achieve this, my family or my entire village or everyone on the planet will die. (STAKES)
11. A change in the rules. You think you need to do x to win but actually you were lied to or misinformed through incompetence and you have to do 2Y or 8X. (PLOT)
12. Someone disappears. (PLOT/RELATIONSHIP/STAKES)
I tried to brainstorm something for my story for each point. Some came easier than others, some made more sense than others. So far for me, the ones that can work are info about the villain, introduce a creature that changes things, a change in stakes, a change in relationship, a personal epiphany, and a rule change.
I don’t need all of these but I don’t intend to choose just one. I can stack them. How many can I stack? Gosh, no idea. I’m an over-writer and add complexity into my plot without noticing so I’d like to use all six. Should I??? Should I???????
No idea. But I’m writing them all down and testing what I can do with them.
But I’ll be sure to stack a person epiphany (INTERNAL) with a relationship change (RELATIONSHIP) and a plot change (PLOT) and if I can squeeze it in a STAKES shift too. Having all four categories in one scene makes that scene so much more powerful.
In summary, I’m not going with my original midpoint. My first idea was actually NOT my best idea. And because of that I’m sticking at this plot point a bit longer to see what else I can come up with and what ideas can be stacked and what can’t.
That’s it for now. See you next time.
Happy writing,
Joanne.
