First, I went over my outline and found that it was less like an outline and more like a vomit of words, thoughts, and ideas that only somewhat alluded to the bones of my story. Unlike probably many people, after this initial brainstorm, I continue to think about and mold the story in my head. It's a method that somehow works for me, but also makes it harder for me to sit down and write everything out because I'll just continue to mull it over and over inside my head.
Needless to say, because I stopped writing down my ongoing "mulling", my notes were far from organized and extremely behind my brain. I have a story in my head, and I have an extremely generalized brainstorm and outline from that initial epiphany I received. Now, I need to put it all together into something that makes sense. I need to organize it. This was something that was never truly explained in my high school narrative classes. Either that, or I was busy writing a poem so I could turn it in by the end of class.
To organize, I always utilize the six mystery words: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How; aptly named because every detective needs these six words answered to make their case before a judge. In writing terms, these words become the setting (where and when), the characters (who), the story, and the plot (what, why, and how).
From these words and terms, I came up with this list:
1. Setting
2. Time line (list of events in chronological order)
3. Characters
4. Story/ Plot (list of events in order they will be written)
5. Research
And in those four hours, I spent a few moments answering all the questions (to assure myself I knew the answers), then I spent the bulk of the time writing out the time line and story of the novel. For me, I'm lucky, my book is written in chronological order.
The story, for most people, is written as an outline; a complete, official, legal outline, just like the one you learned in elementary school and used for every MLA format essay you had to write. However, my brain does not like those outlines. Yes, I understand:
I. Act One- Introduction "Once upon a time..."
1. Introduce main character. "...there was a young prince..."
i. Describe main character's features. "...who was as ugly as a barrel of fish..."
ii. Describe what main character is doing. "...and he loved to dance, but no one cared to watch..."
2. and on and on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
My brain does not like outlines. I'm either too detailed (see above), or too vague, so I scrapped them a long time ago. If that method works for you, by all means, you are welcome to the lot. The method I use, however, I actually picked up while taking an online screenwriting course for fun, around six years ago.
**Thank you, Mr. Skip Press (he's the author to many of the screenwriting books you will find at the bookstore including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Screenwriting). He has a website at www.skippress.com.**
First, buy some stock in the index card company, because these will be your best friends for this method. If you're poor, like I am, cut the index cards in half and you now have twice as many. If you want to use post-its, go for it, but they're more expensive than index cards. The idea is to dissect the story into the three acts, and from there, into the individual scenes.
Quick Note: Most of us who take any formal writing classes, learn that stories are built in three acts, a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you don't know this, let me know, and I can try to reference places to learn more about the three-act structure.
This method is utilized by screenwriters, but it can be used for novel-writing as well. I'm sure that I am not the only writer that does this. In fact, in Stranger Than Fiction, Queen Latifah is seen doing this same method on the floor at one point in the film.
It might be a little more difficult for novels as they are not as formally structured as a screenplay is, but the concept remains true. I find it very zen to just write out a word, phrase, or sentence, that pertains to each particular scene/idea in the story, and put them in their perspective order. Yes, I said zen.
If you are like me, certain scenes stick out in my mind more than others, so I don't have to originally get it out of my head in order, I just record it on a card and put it down in order as I recall more and more scenes. My mind becomes organized as I continue along.
A great perk to using this method, is that it allows you to play with your story line. As you are arranging these cards in order, you might find it more appropriate to move scenes around (note: something you may not see as readily in a typical outline). You can also add scenes you originally forgot to add or take some out without having to sift back through a huge pile of lines and details. And once you have it all finished, it's a straight line so it's hard to get lost.
The other nice thing about index cards, is that on the back of each card, you can put your details for each scene. Outlines are crazy and confusing for me, once I get detailed. The back of the card is clearly defined to that particular part of the story and it won't get separated or mixed in with the rest of the page and forgotten. Plus, as I go along writing the novel, scene by scene, I can cross off each index card and keep my place for when I take breaks.
Now that I have completed my story outline, I can now focus on the next big item on my list: character.
No comments:
Post a Comment