October Novel Prep Challenge

"The outline is the hardest part for me, yet I don't know why. I am a list person. I have to have one to go to the grocery store." - Chrys O'Shea from "Re: Re: Day 8 assignment completed!"  

I love this analogy! It's perfect for explaining why outlining novels is so hard:

The novel outline is harder than the grocery list because of the complexity.

Grocery lists have maybe three levels of complexity at most:

1. staples
         a. bread
         b. milk
         c. eggs

2. birthday party
         a. Hawaiian punch
         b. cake ingredients
                   i. flour
                   ii. vanilla
                   iii. icing

etc. Grocery lists are easy to follow. Whereas, novels are CRAZY complex. For comparison, a short story is relatively simple, and the 5-point outline is usually more than sufficient:

1. Beginning
We meet your characters. It's life as usual until Something happens. This "Something" creates some kind of problem for your characters (aka, Conflict.)

2. Rising Action
We see your characters figuring out what to do about Something through a series of decisions.

3. Climax
We see the culmination of the decisions and how it resolves the Conflict. The resolution could be good or bad for the characters, but either way, it's too late to change the outcome.

4. Falling Action
We see loose ends wrapped up.

5. Resolution
We see how the outcome affects the characters and establish the new, post-Conflict normal.

The problem with this outline template for a novel - I'm also talking to pantsers, because your novel can be outlined after it's written - is that it's not complex enough for a long work. Novels need side plots and supporting characters to enrich their stories and give them more depth. Even stories that appear to have only a protagonist need other characters: Chuck (Tom Hanks) had Wilson on his island (Cast Away) and Five had Delores when he was stuck in an apocalyptic future (The Umbrella Academy). Both also had the memories of the families they left behind, as well as resources from and evidence of a civilization outside their isolation.

We humans have no stories without each other.

Therefore, we need other characters, and other characters come with their own side plots, goals, and histories. Once you start trying to weave your side plots into your outline, it gets very confusing, and it's easy to lose track of the basic premise of your novel.

So, for any novel, the 5-point structure is a great way to identify, in the simplest way, the main story arc of your novel. If you don't have a main character or small group of main characters whose story can be charted by these five plot points, FIX THAT. You should already have three of the five: Beginning (Day 2, Conflict + Day 4, Beginning); Rising Action (Day 10); and Climax (Day 7).

The larger outline templates like Hero's Journey and Save the Cat still contain the five elements of the 5-point structure, but they include more detail and provide novelists a proven recipe for a successful novel. If you're inexperienced at noveling, or experienced, but want a procedure to follow to keep you on track, those templates are perfect.

The Snowflake Method also contains the five elements of the 5-point structure. You basically start with the premise, then add more words so that you now have a 5-point outline, then add more words to each section, building your story by repeated iterations of adding more words. That's a simplification, but the basis in the 5-point structure still stands.

Once you have your main story arc outlined, then you can worry about how to weave your side plots in. You could do 5-point outlines on the individual side plots; you could add them into your Snowflake by adding relevant Words to the sections where you feel they belong; you could write the side plots, divided up by scenes, on index cards, and shuffle them into index cards outlining your main story arc to play with the order of storytelling; etc. etc.

No matter the method you choose for weaving in your side plots, it's going to look like a bowl of spaghetti when it's done.

Cheers,
Michelle