How to Write More Good - Outlining · 9:33pm May 1st, 2018
So, I wanted to write something useful for other people, and one thing that I thought might be helpful was a fairly detailed explanation of how to actually get started writing a story.
This is, of course, my method, so it might work for you or you might have your own way that works too - I've found that the method I detail here keeps me on track towards actually getting to the end of a story. Or at least a chapter.
Step One: Get an Idea
This is probably the easiest part of writing a story because everyone has ideas. You can even borrow ideas or ask people for them. It's still important - you need to be able to explain what the point of your story is, even if you're only telling yourself.
For the purposes of this, I'm going to be talking about something I've been poking at, Kayfabe is Magic, a pro-wrestling flavored EQG AU. It's a long way from being done, so I'll be doing some of these steps live as I write this post.
So my core idea is Pro-Wrestling Horse Women. It's not the strongest idea, in fact, it's not even a story idea. It's a setting. One important thing I've learned from writing is that it's very important to distinguish between setting/character ideas and plot ideas.
Setting/character ideas don't lend themselves to moving to the next step. They describe where the story happens or who is involved, but the most important bit of a story is what happens. Let me give some examples, paraphrasing things I've heard over the years:
"My story is about Sundae Best, a pony ice-cream maker with a dark past involving hot fudge and jalapenos."
"Okay, what does she do?"
"You know, ice-cream stuff."
If you can't name a specific thing that the character does, you don't have a full idea yet.
"My story is set in a cybernetic world where the ponies are all cyborgs, sort of like Blade Runner, all neon and smog and rain. Check out this map I made and some ideas about what kind of implants the mane characters will get!"
"Okay, what happens?"
"Cyborg stuff, I guess? I haven't decided."
Same thing for a setting. No matter how much world-building you do, even if you can tell me the name of everyone on the block and you've got some cool backgrounds on how magical cybernetics work (and believe me, I'm the kind of guy that likes to read some good technobabble) you still need to know what happens in the story before you can start to write.
So I have to refine my idea:
"Celestia is the World Heavyweight Champion (don't call her heavy to her face though) and Sunset Shimmer isn't going to rest until she can take that belt from her - no matter how much of a heel she has to be."
It's a little vague but we can work with this for the next step.
Step Two: Big List of Cool Stuff
This next step is exactly what it says on the tin. You sit down in front of an empty page and you brainstorm. Write down every idea, good or bad, big or small. Don't bother ordering it yet. Just go for stream of consciousness and see what you can come up with. Setting ideas, characters that can show up, and most importantly, things that can happen.
The reason you do this is you're seeing how big your idea is and how much room you have to explore. If you can't come up with much, maybe you don't have a great idea, or at least you need to think about it more. On the other hand, if you have a million ideas, you've got something you're passionate about and it's gonna be pretty easy for you to get things together.
You also know how long your story can be - if you only have a couple ideas, you're probably going to have a short story. A huge list means you can write something much longer if you want - or that you can pick and choose the best of the bunch for something shorter (but save the rest in case you want to use them later).
When I was brainstorming for Kayfabe is Magic, I came up with a list of things like the following.
Filthy Rich is Vince McMahon
Derpy is punch drunk
Nickname for Tia - Eternal Champion
Big Mac died in a hardcore match?
AJ Styles is a great name for AJ/Rarity Tag Team
Obviously, that's only a partial list, but you get the idea. You probably won't use every idea you come up with, so don't be afraid to let something go or change your mind on things at this stage (or any other stage).
Step Three: Basic Outline
Now you're going to put those ideas to work for you. Make a copy of your list of ideas (version control is critical to any project) and start shoving them into something approaching chronological order.
Some things - character notes, for example, aren't going to fit neatly into a timeline. Put those off to the side for now.
With any luck you'll have something with a beginning, middle, and end. You might find out you need to add at least one of those - in the case of Kayfabe is magic it's the very beginning. I didn't have a solid idea for how Sunset actually got involved with Pro Wrestling - I knew what motivated her (beating Tia), but nothing else.
I fixed that (and I'll write about that another time because the very start of a story is a big topic) and ended up with something very much like my last list, but in an order and with a few plot gaps filled in.
If you have a lot of ideas, you might want to decide now if you're going to break it into multiple chapters, and where the breaks are going to be.
Step 4: Zoom Lens
Next step is pretty simple. You're going to write out, in detail, what is going to happen in your story. You're essentially putting together the cliff's notes of your entire tale. I'm going to be working with the first chapter of Kayfabe is Magic for this.
My list of ideas for chapter one was pretty basic:
Set up her motivation for getting into this
Opponent: Unimportant, someone weak who is a ‘favorite’ to win. Maybe Starlight Glimmer, set up a revenge plot for later
B-Plot - trying to learn the rules, serves to tell the audience what the rules are
Not really enough time to fix the stamina problem, day of the test told to keep it short
On the other hand, power overwhelming
Her opponent is the genius darling of the circuit, favorite to be amateur champ
Some Starlight Glimmer backstory
Sunset takes her down in a couple seconds, reactions
Sunset goes out for celebrations, has her license, etc.
It's entirely possible to start writing here, and for one-shots and other very short stories sometimes I do. But more often, I'll take it a step further and write a more detailed treatment, like so:
Chapter One: Attitude
1.1 - We open with Apple Bloom finding someone sleeping on the couch in her and Applejack’s Phillydelphia apartment. Sunset Shimmer in the human world, but not the one we know. She’s not a high-schooler, she came through the portal without a plan and by the time she realized that even being in exile in Equestria was better than this, the portal was closed. Magic *does* work here, but the rules are different and she can’t get it working correctly. Applejack found her basically freezing to death and felt sorry enough for her to make her sleep somewhere warm. Sunset was suspicious but too cold to refuse. When she tries to eat breakfast she instinctively attempts to use TK to move the utensils and it works a little but she struggles with control since she doesn’t have her horn. AJ isn’t gonna leave her in the apartment alone with Bloom, so they’re going to the gym.
Typically I'll write five or six chunks like this for each chapter. If I can't write out at least that much as a summary than it means I need to add more to the mix - some ideas are simply bigger than others. In my list of ideas, clearly 'Some Starlight Glimmer backstory' and 'day of the test told to keep it short' aren't going to take up the same amount of space on the page.
At this point, you should have a very detailed idea of what will happen in your story, or at least one chapter of it!
Very helpful. I'll try to implement this if/when I start a new story. For now, I want to see how my current one turns out when I'm writing by the seat of my pants. It seems to be working so far—no dislikes yet.
Is "Age of False Innocence" still alive?
Nice.
I'm going to use this. A lot. I'm very good at world building, and pants at plot lines, so this is very helpful.
Why don't I get to upvote bog posts?