Lesson Three: Mapping Out a Plot (Basic)

“The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot.”
--E. M. Forster

A plot is the central line of your story, the events that take place, the order in which they take place and their outcome.

For example: you’re writing a love story, an innocent ship fic. At first, your main character notices the beloved and expresses some desire to be with him/her/it. Then, that character takes some actions to attract him/her/it. They succeed, they get married, they all live happily ever after and have three and a half foals. Yay.

That was an outline. A very, very basic outline.

We’ll cover two things in this lesson. First, what makes a good outline and why you need one, and second, how to go about making it.

An outline is any shortened and condensed version of a story before it is written. All the shiny prose is absent, so you are left with the bare bones of the story. X does Y, then Z happens, then X moved over to Q, and so on.

That’s all fine and dandy, but how do you make the outline good?

Well, think of how you’ll use it. You might spend some time writing it, and fleshing out some key points, but when it comes time to write, you’re not likely to actually look at it that often. So, what do you put in it?

The bare minimum. Just what happens, and sometimes a few key details about location, events and reactions. That’s it! The goal of an outline is to have a place to flesh out your ideas and keep them solid for a long time, not to go into every crevice and crack. And of course, you still want a little wiggle-room for creativity!

But, Mister Lesson-Writer? Why go through alllll that effort? Shouldn’t I just write?

You could, and no one would hold it against you. But, think of the advantages of the outline.
-It’s unlikely that you have time to write an entire idea in a single day, and ideas degrade and change with time. Having an outline gives you a solid lead on your own thoughts.
-You have a playing field of your story and all its elements, one you can change on a whim without losing hours of work.
-It only takes a few minutes to do, and its a decent way to start the day. (Hey, it rhymes!)

Now, for our friendly how-to:

Step One: Open your favourite word processor.
Step Two: Scribble the main goals of that chapter/story.
Step Three: Find ties between the events that fulfill these goals.
Step Four: Fill in the blanks.

A half-page long outline can cover the work of a hundred pages, or merely one. Don’t worry about spelling and odd phrases here, you’re the only one that will be reading this.

Again, if you’re not into outlines and plot mapping, don’t mind these. Yet, keep in mind that it takes very little effort to craft and that you might regret it in the future if you skip this step!

Tomorrow’s lesson: Mapping Out a Plot [Advanced] We’ll cover the deeper parts of a plot, creating characters that have depth and having fun with plot.