October Novel Prep Challenge

Howdy!

The assignment for October 8 is one that gets repeated a few times during prep month. It's time to create an outline. If you look over the calendar as a whole, you will notice that this assignment is done in three drafts. Which is means if you don't know the whole story right now, that's okay. In fact, it might help not to write everything there is to the story for today because it's only draft number one.

Assignment: Outline Revision #1 ▼

This one might be easier for the writers who thrive off planning. If you go with one side or the other a plotter is going to have an easier time, in theory, than a pantser. We are early on two in the month, so if it's a challenge for you to come up with a full outline, just know that it is okay.

The good part about an assignment that has more than one draft is you can add on things later. Hopefully, as you go through the assignments during this month, they help you to develop the story before we start writing in November.

Full Disclosure: I'm not much of an outliner. In fact, the first couple of years when we had to do three or four drafts of an outline during prep, I dreaded those days. Since I'm not much of a plotter, when I do write during NaNoWriMo, I don't even look back at the outlines at all. However, I will also say there is a benefit from writing outlines and now, after years of prep work, I will sometimes do a mini outline during the novel writing process when I'm getting ready to work on a section. It helps to jot down in a few lines or bullet points what comes next before getting them into sentence from in a story.

Some of the recommended outline options are easier than others. The five point outline or something traditional might be easier if you aren't much of an outliner, that or maybe doing something similar that has your own style to things. Five point reminds me of the general format for essays and speeches, which is also a five point format. The five point essay format was the introduction, three points that support the thesis found in the intro, and a conclusion. However, it could be expanded beyond that layout but could be put into three major areas: intro, body, conclusion. The same could be done with a story if you look at it from the beginning, middle and ending.

However, if you dig the whole outline process, are very much into planning and want to try out one of the more detailed approaches, then the Hero's Journey and the Snowflake Method might be more your jam.



Think of the outline as a list of directions. For those who are old enough to remember before the cell phones had direction apps like Waze, I'm talking about back when one could search for directions between locations on sites like MapQuest and then printed them out. The outline is that print out because it can help guide by provided steps but it doesn't have to go into detail over everything you will pass along the way.

I hope that makes sense. I'm around for outline day and any day if you have questions or want to chat about ideas.