#The plot hole about thanksgiving is my fav one

[sunalsolove]

Outlining is good advice. Do you have any advice on outlining?

I could go on well past the point of putting everyone but myself to sleep ;-) 

This is for longer fics, I usually don’t outline a one-shot unless I’m having some kind of issue with the flow. 

Two common criticisms I’m going to brush aside:

1) It forces me into a set in stone story...nope. If your fic suddenly develops something like an unexpected side pair relationship, you just go back to your outline and rework the story to accommodate the change. 

2) It sucks all creativity out of everything and now you don’t want to write the fic because you already know the plot. I hate to break it to you, but if your idea isn’t interesting enough for you to want to read it multiple times...then why the hell are you inflicting it on the rest of us? A long fic in the 80K range is going to take months to write unless you’re doing nothing but writing it. You have to be committed to your idea because you’re going to be deep in the swamp of it for a while. If you’re sick of it after writing a quick skim outline...may try a different idea. 

Outlining

You can have something as simple as beginning, middle, and end. Three chapters. The three-act story structure is tried and true. Most blockbuster movies follow the format. You can just jot down a few things for each point. 

Or if you’re comfortable with your writing style, you can dive a lot deeper. How long is your typical chapter? How big of an idea do you have? What scene is in your head? The one you think about over and over? Is it the thing that starts the entire story off, or the middle when the balance tips? Or the climax where everything explodes and The Rock is dangling from a helicopter. Or building. Or giant creature? 

I follow the basic plan of a starting inciting incident, 3 major plot points (at 25, 50, and 75% through the story) a climax, and a fairly quick denoument. (Ten novels later and I’m still working on the very last part. I usually don’t want to leave my world and I end up dragging the happy end part out) (No, really, I wrote chapter 15 of 28 the other day of a 100K fic and cried because I was more than half way done).  I toss in pinch points (times when things look rough) at around 33% and 66%.  

I like to write smutty, shippy, plotty fics, so if the rating is E the sex is going to be at one of those plot points!

It ends up looking like: 

1. Inciting Incident (&hook) 

2. plot point

3. Pinch point 1

4. 

5.plot point

6. Pinch point 2

7.plot point

8. 

9. Climax

10. ending

....which is how I end up with 10 chapters not being much wiggle room. If I want to be meatier I’m going to need 20-40.  (my chapters average 3.5K) 

Once I have the bare bones I’ll start to fill in the rest. Is the inciting incident a meet cute? At 25% (first plot point) does the hero realize he’s in love? At 50% they boink, at 75% the heroine (or other hero, or whatever floats your boat) figures out they’re in love, at 90% they get it and finally say the love word to each other. The last chapter is a marriage. 

Being me there’s also probably some other plot going on because there’s not a lot of will they won’t they? If I click on a fic marked MY FAV/MY OTHER FAV and it’s not tagged as an unhappy ending or angst, I’ll toss rotten fruit in your general direction. That other plot might mean they realize they love each other like idiots in the middle of a giant firefight or alien invasion. 

Include your point of view and how many scenes are in a chapter. Are you writing only one character’s take? Switching back and forth each chapter? Or from one character to the other when the scene changes within a chapter? 

Fill in the blanks. How do we get from scene a to scene b? Is everything balanced (i.e. enough “screen time” for each character you’re showing?) These can be really rough at first. I’ll have scenes that are just: character a) SMUT. 

But then I add in more and more details to the plot. I indentify holes and patch them. I know the details when Im writing that way. I sit down and say: this is the scene when my ship eats ham as part of Thanksgiving dinner while sitting in a hospital room after getting back together, and twenty chapters later the pay off is a knock down drag out fight with a mysthical boar (it makes more sense in the fic).

I even go back and layer in things like: communication is a theme! When did someone last listen to the radio? What station? Or my current issue of OMG...did I mention the Roomba enough?? I’m making a pass through my outline for appropriate Roomba mentions. 

An outline is like watching a movie on fast forward. You know the general things. that will happen, but not the specific details of each and every scene. You can identify research you need to do ahead of time and look up references for that posh apartment in France your OTP is sharing while you’re on the bus to work. 

The goal is to know where you’re going while you’re writing. The story is there, you’re not trying to fight the plot while also falling into the emotions and setting of a scene. And your characters won’t always behave. And then you go back and reoutline. 

You can save a lot of time if your story fizzles at chapter twenty of thirty in your outline instead of writing 60K and then going...well, CRAP. It also keeps your readers from wanting to tar and feather you. 

Also, a story works best when you hit the expected marks, like having something major happen at 50% in a fic. Out brains go YES! This is where that goes! It gets happy. You want your readers to feel that, even if they don’t know what it is. It’s a leg up. 

tl. dr Outline, outline, outline. Trust me, I know when someone doesn’t because the story *feels* wrong. 

One last piece of advice, don’t over outline either. If you’re not stopping to actually write the story, then you’re doing it wrong. 

I hope this helped a tiny bit. Google story structure for much more detailed descriptions and sample outlines. 

Writing a good fic/novel/story isn’t just about inspiration it’s knowing how to tell that story effectively. Don’t stumble around in the dark, grab an outline and use it to light your way!