“So You Want to Write a Novel?”

Congratulations.  You’re about to embark on a great adventure.  It’ll be a lot of hard work.  It’ll be frustrating.  It’ll seem like it won’t ever end.  But it will also be, in the end, very rewarding.  Like working out at the gym, it feels so good when you stop.

I’m starting my own new novel The Farpool this week.  Over the next few posts, I’ll give everybody a little peek behind the curtains, and explain just what kind of gymnastics I go through in my process of planning, researching, outlining and otherwise getting ready for writing the first draft.  First I’ll cover the story itself (plotting), then the people (characters), then the setting.  I’m not posting a primer on how to write a good story.  Others have done that for centuries.  This is just a peek at the nuts and bolts of how I do it.

Part 1: The Story (Outline)

For me, everything starts with a written idea of a few sentences and a title.  I’ve found that having a good working title seems to encapsulate everything I want to say about this nascent idea.  Write down in as few sentences as possible what the story’s about.  What sticks in your mind?  What lingers in your imagination while you’re taking a shower?  Put it on paper.  It may not be much, but from that seed, bigger things will grow.

My outline drives everything, including the people (what I used to call characters), even details of the setting.  From the few sentences I’ve already written, if this idea continues to hang around and doesn’t go away, I begin a process of elaborating and structuring that takes anywhere from a few days to a few months. 

 

Key Plot Points – General Story Outline

The next step for me is to take these few sentences and expand.  I write a list of things I expect to happen in the story, preferably in sequential order:  1. John does this. 2. Then Mary does this and the whole city blows up.  3. Then aliens land and take them prisoner and perform unmentionable experiments. 4. Mary has a child with one of them.  That sort of thing.  Just a straight list to see what plot points need to be illustrated, narrated, connected, who does what to whom, etc.  This list usually runs about 5-10 pages.  For The Farpool, my plot points and story elements list is 9 pages. 

The next step is to take these elements and put them into some kind of order.

 

Table of Plot Lines

This step is just what it sounds like.  I work out how many different threads of story there might be, how many plot lines.  In my example above, there could be John’s story, Mary’s story and the aliens’ story.  That would be 3 plot lines.  I literally build a table with one column devoted to a brief description of the relevant plot points for that story thread.  Then each row of the table contains the plot points, as they develop and unfold sequentially. 

Why do I do this?  So I can see at a glance how the different plot threads relate to each other, how something Mary does caused John to do something else and the aliens then responded this way.  It’s an easy way of connecting plot elements and making sure the whole thing hangs together.  Later I’ll number these individual plot elements in what I call Scene Order, that is, the order they will be written and appear.  This is like taking (1) from Column A, (2) from Column B and so forth.  This gives me a sense of how the story flows.

Finally, I’ll take a red pen and start grouping these numbered scene elements into chapters.  Often, in fact, usually, there will be plot elements from different columns comprising a chapter.  The table starts to look like I spilled spaghetti on it.  But it helps me visualize, in increasing detail and specificity, how the story will unfold.  John does something, Mary reacts or runs away, the aliens swoop in and pick her up, then John reacts to that.

Now I’m finally ready for the Big Outline.  As I said, my outline is my Bible.  It drives everything.  I may veer off from the outline in writing the story, but when I do, I’d better have a good reason, and make sure I don’t unravel other plot threads in the process.

 

Chapter and Scene Details

The final outlining step is to take each plot element I’ve written, inserted into a table, numbered and grouped, and write a few paragraphs, up to a page about what happens.  In other words, more detail.  Sometimes I find in actually writing the story that I can lift phrases and whole paragraphs from this outline; it’s that detailed.  Mainly, this final outline gives me a chance to expand my ideas, note particular actions or character responses, identify research needs I hadn’t thought about, etc.  This outline is detailed.  For The Farpool, it came to 18 pages.  It’s a sequential outline too, since I note details of setting (to be expanded later as needed) and time frame as well as expound on what is to happen. 

The outline that I call Chapter and Scene Details is what I will write the first draft directly from. 

And that starts this week.

In my next post, I’ll cover the process by which I learn about the people in the story…what the English teachers call characterization.  As you might expect, I have a detailed approach to this as well. 

See you next time, in about a week. 

Phil B.