Felt it was time to create a new pinned post- anyways! Gonna try keeping this short!
I'm 20, use any pronouns, and am aroace. And this is my main blog!
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Consider this (based on a conversation I had with some friends a while ago): Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for people who actually like Pride and Prejudice.
Look–I tried to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I got about 20 pages in before I came to the conclusion that the person who wrote it did so out of the belief that the original Pride and Prejudice was stuffy and boring. There were out of character vulgar puns. And the trailer for the movie did not convince me that I had missed anything by cutting short my reading experience.
So, what I’m talking about here is this premise: the world of Pride and Prejudice, but if you die, it’s highly likely, almost certain that your corpse will get up and try to eat people.
But no one dies in Pride and Prejudice, you might say. In fact, few or no people die in any Jane Austen novel.
This is true. But people do get sick with some regularity. Imagine the tension added to Jane getting sick after going to visit Bingley if there was the chance that she would become a zombie after she died. Becoming a zombie in an eligible bachelor’s house probably would have seriously wrecked any chances of any of the living sisters ending up with him.
Imagine Mr. Collins, as a minister, having the duty upon someone’s death of severing their head with a ceremonial plate or something that would prevent the corpse from rising. Obviously important, but this only makes him more self-important and obnoxious.
And dangerous.
For you see, in this version, Mr. Bennett, who stays in his office all the time, whose life is the only thing allowing Mrs. Bennett and her daughters to stay in the house–Mr. Bennett is definitely a zombie. He died at home, and Mrs. Bennett decided that, no way were they dealing with this, and so…just started faking it. Jane and Elizabeth know. The younger sisters don’t.
In this universe, I think we have to go with zombies that are not any faster or stronger than the humans they were, and in fact tend to get weaker as time passes because their flesh is rotting. And…hmm, okay, how about they are pretty violent upon rising, and for about a week afterward, trying to bite people and spread the infection (even though most people are carriers anyway, but getting a nasty bite from a corpse will give you other stuff that will have you die while carrying the virus). But then they calm down and basically just start sort of attempting to act like they did in life, that is, taking habitual actions with no consciousness, in a depressing and desiccated way.
So Mr. Bennett is a zombie, and Mrs. Bennett’s number one goal is to get her daughters married before anyone finds that out. And this, actually, makes Elizabeth’s refusal of Mr. Collins more frustrating for Mrs. Bennett–obviously Mr. Bennett didn’t tell Elizabeth that she could refuse Mr. Collins, because Mr. Bennett is dead, but Mrs. Bennett can’t say anything or the game would be up.
Another question in this version–does Mr. Darcy find out about Mr. Bennett being a zombie somehow? Does Elizabeth find out that he knows and didn’t say anything and this is something that helps repair his earlier actions?
Anyway, this is the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that I was looking for.
Okay also: in the original, when Elizabeth walks through the rain all the way to bingley’s to care for Jane while she’s sick, it’s a very dramatic expression of both Elizabeth’s love for her sister and her penchant for flamboyant rebellion, but consider, if there is a chance Jane will wake up a zombie and Elizabeth knows it, how does that change the dynamic? Elizabeth might be going to help take care of Jane, or to *take care* of Jane should things take a more morbid turn…by killing her zombie sister.
This works especially well if zombieism is communicable prior to death; if mr. Bennett is a zombie and only the elder Bennetts know, that means Jane has been pre-exposed and is almost certain to wake up as a zombie should she die in the Bingleys’ care— which the Bingleys do not know. Elizabeth has to forge through the rain to be there in case things get ugly, because she knows that the Bingleys aren’t prepared.
And I think you pretty much HAVE to make Mr. Bennett’s zombie status play a role in how and why Darcy separates Bingley from Jane—the heavy implication behind Darcy’s line about the want of propriety shown even by her father hits Elizabeth like a ton of bricks as she realizes he knows—he knows, and he thought Jane lying to Bingley about it was evidence that Jane didn’t love Bingley—but—but Darcy must not have told Bingley that part of it. Bingley couldn’t keep a secret on his life; if he knew, his sister would know, and word would already be out and they’d have been ruined by now—
And of course, not only does the fact that Darcy, who owes their family nothing, has kept and continues to keep this secret for them even after Elizabeth’s refusal deepen the gratitude she begins to feel for him after the letter of explanation, but it also liberates Elizabeth to fall in love with him. Because Elizabeth-who-wants-to-marry-for-love would never be happy marrying someone who didn’t know the family secret in advance. She had resigned herself to spinsterhood because she couldn’t be satisfied with having to hoodwink someone to have their hand, but also couldn’t put her family at risk by trusting someone who wasn’t bound to them by more than an engagement. (Maybe she was even tempted to confide in Wickham at one point, and hasn’t Darcy’s letter proven she was absolutely right not to yield to that passing thought.) But Darcy figured it out himself, and he’s kept her trust, and she could fall in love with him without guilt—if she hadn’t already turned him down.
AND THEN LYDIA HAPPENS. And Darcy realizes immediately that Mr. Bennett can’t do anything to recover her—and if Mr. Bennett doesn’t do anything about Lydia, Mr. Collins might become suspicious, or even just officously involve himself, so find out the while thing. When Darcy blames himself for not revealing Wickham’s character, it’s with a much more immediate sense of urgency. It’s not that the other sisters’ marriage prospects being ruined may impoverish them down the road—it might immediately drag them all into destitution. That’s why he rushes off to go look for Lydia himself.
Rent lowering gunshots here but if you discriminate against what kinds of plural people/systems are "Real" and "valid" then I fucking hate you. Don't come here. You are hurting vulnerable people. Fuck you.
A guy at the gym just looked around, realized he was lifting the same weight as a "girl" in a wheelchair, pushed his weight up two notches, screamed once, and left.
one of my principles of social interaction is "dont be a dick to someone who's worst crime is being annoying and not understanding social cues" because i know firsthand how much that sucks. unfortunately this means that i'm not a dick to people who i just find kind of annoying when a lot of other people are and then they try to be friends with me (because im not a dick to them) (but i still dont really want to be friends)
Qifrey: Good morning! Rare to see you up this early, Olruggio! We're having a totally /normal/ morning, and- Olly: What happened..... Let's go, girls! Unpaid internship ahead!
“Sir, that coupon expired during the Obama administration.”
“We close in two minutes, which is a fascinating time to order fourteen burgers.”
“I asked for two things today: no bus tours and no school classes. And yet, there it is: two busses of school classes pulling into the lot.”
“Did you make the wrong order on purpose just so you could eat it instead?” “Yeah, that was the plan. He didn’t notice though and drove off with my dinner, so we can expect another angry review.”
“Ma’am, I just work here. I’m not involved in corporate decisions, such as changing the menu.”
“Of course, you can absolutely speak to the manager. He’s back there, hiding from customers.”
“If the card reader declines one more payment today, I might just walk into traffic.”
“That’s gotta be a health code violation.” “Surprisingly, it actually isn’t.”
(mumbling under their breath) “Who the fuck orders that before 8am.”
“Sorry for the wait. The kitchen entered a state of civil unrest.”
“I used to have dreams, you know? I went to college. Got a degree and all. I dreamed of changing the world, but then it all changed when I got hit by that bus—” “You know what, I don’t think I actually need the fries with the burger, so I’ll just… I’ll just go.”
[Prompt Calender: May 28th, National Hamburger Day]
Using a Reverse Outline to Understand Your First Draft’s Structure Before Editing
I've been using versions of this tool for years, for both my own self-editing and when I work as a developmental editor for clients. Now I'd like to share a template and a hopefully not-too-long explanation of ways you can work with it!
First off: congratulations on finishing a draft of your story! Now, as you get ready to revise it into a second, improved draft, it helps to see what the story is currently shaped like. Even if you aren’t a “planner” who outlines stories before writing them, you can benefit from a reverse outline after completing the story. It's lower-pressure and often easier than a planning outline because you just need to describe what you’ve already written. In fact, writing about your story can be pretty fun! And it will give you a sense of direction and increased confidence as you begin editing.
A reverse outline can be as simple or as detailed as you like. I’m going to give directions (and a sample file) for a fairly detailed one, which you can use as-is if it works for you, or adapt to be simpler, or adapt to include additional elements if that’s better for your process.
Here's the link to the reverse outline template in Drive. I've filled out the first few rows with example information from one of my own stories. Please go ahead and make a copy for your own use! One tip: under the "View" tab, there's an option to "Freeze" columns or rows so they move with you as you scroll in the file. I've already frozen the top row; you may also want to freeze columns A and B for ease of reference when you scroll horizontally. There are quite a few columns, and you don’t need to use all of them at once—different elements are more relevant to different writers and in different stories. In the rest of this post, I’ll explain what each column can do for you.
(The second tab of the file includes a sample reverse outline for nonfiction, with examples from a book of advice on editing that I'm writing at the moment and which this post may become a chapter in. Exactly what columns you’ll want in a nonfiction reverse outline will depend on your overall structure. Narrative nonfiction and memoir use similar techniques as fiction and could benefit from the standard reverse outline.)
Column A: Chapter number and title, scene
Some writers make their reverse outlines chapter-by-chapter, but since each chapter can include multiple scenes, and each scene deserves TLC, let’s give each scene a row.
(My reverse outline sample is for one of my short story collections, so I've given the title of the short story instead of a chapter number. Again, the template is adaptable!)
Among other benefits, filling out this column shows if you've acquired two Chapter 20s by accident. Or if you've given some chapters too-similar titles. Or if one chapter has way more scenes, or way fewer, than any other—which isn’t necessarily a problem, just something to observe right now.
While I’m giving advice: using the “Heading” style to mark your chapter titles/numbers makes it easier to find things your manuscript. Headings get their own space in the Navigation toolbar that comes up when you hit “Control + F” in Microsoft Word or click the “Document Tabs” option in Google Drive.
Column B: Action summary
Write about what happens in the scene. How much detail to include depends on your personal taste and memory. You don’t want to crowd the box with information or take a very long time at this. But it can be useful to spell out not just what happens, but some of why it happens and what results. This helps you follow the chain of logic and spot where links might be weak or missing.
A quick example of how an action summary can include cause and effect: “Overhearing Jason’s phone call, Miranda begins to suspect he was involved in the murder. She confronts him, he denies everything, and he leaves the house and doesn’t come back that night.” If you feel comfortable with shorter action summaries, you might just write this as “Miranda confronts Jason about the murder. He leaves.”
If you're going to write a synopsis to query this novel to literary agents or publishers, the reverse outline can help you get started. (I made my first reverse outlines for synopsis-writing purposes, before adapting them for other uses as both a writer and a freelance editor.) It accomplishes the major step of turning a novel into a few pages. You’ll still need to edit those few pages into something shorter and smoother, and I'd write the actual synopsis after you've given the book a structural edit, since elements of the plot may change in the process!
Speaking of summary, if the action in the story draft is told in narrative summary rather than shown as it happens, it’s often helpful to make a note of this. Summary has its uses: it can convey a lot to the reader quickly and it adds variety to pacing. Whether you have too much narrative summary or too little is something to consider once you have the outline filled out.
Column C: Scene wordcount
Use words, not number of pages, because the same amount of words can fit on more or fewer pages with different formatting. In publishing and professional editing, there’s still the convention that 1 page = 250 words, but in my experience, 12-point Times New Roman font that’s double spaced often fits 300+ words onto a page.
Column D: Cumulative wordcount
I’ve entered a formula here to sum up column C to the current row. This gives you a sense of when each scene takes place on the scale of the story, and also how your pacing is. (You can click the corner of a cell and drag it down to extend the formula as you add more scenes.)
That's the simplest version.
If you just want to fill in the first three columns and let the formula fill out the fourth for you, that gives you a one-sheet "map" of your story that can make the full manuscript easier to navigate, and it can be sufficient to get started on evaluating your story. But you’re missing half the fun.
Column E: POV character
To avoid both reader and writer confusion, I recommend sticking to one POV per scene. Some editors and publishers insist on it. But if you want to risk omniscient POV, that can go here too.
This column reveals when POV changes and whose perspective we spend the most time in. In one story I’m working on, I've added notes in this column about alternative POVs I could narrate the scene from, if I decide to change things up in the second draft. You don’t need to divide POV equally among all your characters, even if you have multiple protagonists. However, if one POV evaporates from the story partway through, or one takes over a long stretch of chapters, it’s good to spot this. And readers may be distracted if you have one or two scenes that make atypical POV choices without clear reason.
Columns F and G: Location; Date and time
These may help you catch continuity errors, like if a character returns home from the same trip twice, a minor character is in two places at once, or a particular evening in August winds up way too busy.
Column G is especially helpful for stories that span a long time—or a very short time. Even if you don’t have exact dates, a note such as “three days after the previous scene” can help avoid logistical tangles. (When timeline is especially important to a story, some writers fill out a virtual or physical calendar with their story events. You can often get print calendars for the previous year cheaply at an office supply or stationary store in January/February.)
If your story takes place in a single location or timeline is not a big concern, you don’t need to use these columns—this reverse outline is always customizable!
Column H: Plot and subplots advanced
There’s a lot going on in a story, and often a lot going on at the same time. This column lets you track where and when different plotlines are developed. You may find it useful to label your plots and subplots with categories like “External” (dealing with the world around the protagonist), “Internal" (psychological change that drives character arcs), or “Interpersonal” (rivalry, romance, and more).
Column I: Conflict of the scene and character desires
Conflict doesn’t have to be violent or flashy. But stories generally include a goal and some friction that prevents the goal from being met. In this way, desire and conflict are often closely connected.
If nobody wanted things to change, there wouldn’t be much to write a story about. If everyone immediately got the change they desire, the story would be very short. Adding friction will make events feel more realistic and engaging to readers. Conflict creates suspense: if there are opposing forces, we can’t predict who will win (or how they’ll manage to win, even if we trust the story will end well for a character). Conflict also lets you explore multiple sides of a situation or theme.
Depending on how you fill out the action summary in Column B, you might cover much of this information there. But I suggest filling out Column I for at least a few scenes to get the hang of evaluating conflict and motivation. If these are missing, a scene can feel directionless and emotionally flat.
Splitting information across multiple columns can also prevent any one part of the outline from getting too swollen. Especially if you write long or action-packed scenes, you may find yourself writing a lot in each cell. A few solutions: one, you may prioritize only the most significant developments of each scene. You can always come back and add more information later. Two, you may realize a scene would work better as two shorter or simpler scenes. (Though don't do this just because it's busy in the outline: consider how the scene itself reads in the story.) Three, you may adapt the outline to give each scene multiple rows evaluating different elements. Just put the wordcount in column C as 0 for the added rows, and it won’t mess up the cumulative wordcount formula (I've given an example in the template).
If the protagonist does get what they want, you’ve either reached the happy ending of the story (or at least a subplot) or you need to give them something else to want, another itch to satisfy. Maybe solving one problem makes them realize there’s an additional problem. Or it’s a question of short-term vs long-term goals: Frodo has made it to Rivendell, but then he takes on the new goal of reaching Mordor.
Column J: Reader emotional response
One reason we write stories is because we want to make people feel things. Here’s where you can talk about what you want the reader to feel. This gives you ideas for what to punch up and enhance in revisions. If you want them to be sad, what is the line they’ll start crying on?If you want them to be hopeful, what should they hope for and why will they feel hope that it will happen?
You may update this column after getting beta reader feedback on an early draft (but not a first draft—the first draft is for you): where and how did your beta react? Was it the way you hoped for, or were there surprises? You could even ask your beta reader to fill out a version of this chart.
Column K: Questions raised or intensified
A powerful emotion to draw readers in is curiosity. And every story will involve some exposition and explanation as we learn about the characters, the setting, and the plotline. Some writers use the term Dramatic Question or Narrative Question to refer to the single biggest and most crucial question that keeps the story going. Once that single question is answered, the story wraps up. Others use the term Story Questions for the various mysteries on different scales that keep readers turning pages—and not just in mystery novels. Whatever you call them, you can track in this column the questions you expect readers to ask with each scene.
In general, when a question is answered, a new, larger or more intense one should take its place. Or the answer to a still-lingering question becomes more urgent. By the end of the story, the majority of questions are answered. You may include a sequel hook, and writers often leave some small, tantalizing details open-ended to make a story feel more realistic, more vivid, or more haunting—or because we don’t have space to chase down every loose end. But if your biggest questions aren’t resolved, the story doesn’t feel over.
I find story questions hugely exciting because curiosity is what most often sucks me in as a reader. But a story isn’t just an intellectual exercise. It’s fatal if a reader ever decides, “I don’t care about learning the answer to this question.” Make sure your other columns are providing reasons for readers to care (especially column J).
You don't want this column to be empty. But you may not want it to get too full, either. It’s possible to draw out a question for too long, leaving readers confused or frustrated. It’s also possible to raise too many questions to easily keep track of. If they’re asking too much and learning too little, some readers might give up on ever finding answers. So be sure to consider both new questions and the weight of the questions already hanging over the readers' (and characters') heads.
As for where to track the answers, it’s dealer’s choice—you could put them in this column, or the answers might be described as part of the action summary or another column. Use this outline in a way that matches how you think, since it's organizing your story.
This is another column it can be useful to ask your beta readers to fill out (or "What questions do you have at the end of this chapter?" could be something to ask them in another format.) You may be surprised by what piques your readers' curiosity!
To reiterate, the mysteries that draw a reader to the next page or chapter—or sentence—don't have to be big. Jack Hart’s guide to narrative nonfiction, Storycraft, provides two excellent examples of opening lines with tiny mysteries that hook you. Joan Didion begins a piece with “Imagine Banyan Street first, because Banyan Street is where it happened.” Right away we wonder: what is “it”? And where is Banyan Street? The second example was written by Spencer Heinz in the Oregonian: “Pat Yost was in bed when she heard the sound.” Most readers will give Heinz’s next few sentences their attention to learn what the sound was, and Yost’s vulnerability makes the question feel urgent. You can get a bit too obviously manipulative with tiny questions (so that the reader asks “For crying out loud, what is it now?”), but it’s a useful technique to keep in mind.
The other beauty of these questions is that they can make the need for exposition work for you. Rather than being bored to tears by an infodump, the reader is intrigued by hints and glimpses, then satisfied to receive more context and explanation.
Column L: New characters and concepts introduced
This column can help you pace your exposition and introductions. (It overlaps with the previous column, but different writers find different angles helpful for analyzing a story, so I’ve included both. You may not fill out this column for every chapter, especially shorter chapters or chapters later in the story.) Tracking this can prevent you from introducing the same person in two different scenes. It also reveals opportunities to energize any doldrums in the middle of your story by adding a new idea.
Column M: Notes (and whatever else you desire)
I use this column to make revision suggestions to myself. You can also use it to track elements you find important but which don’t fit in other columns. Again, please feel free to add more columns and delete ones that aren’t a priority for this story or your process!
Mystery writers may want a column to keep track of where clues or red herrings appear. Romance novelists may want to track beats. A kinky romance novelist may want to keep track of which toys the characters use in which sex scene. Other writers may want to track what Robert McKee calls the “value charge,” measuring how much closer to or farther from their goal a character has moved.
Using the Outline
You don't have to fill out the entire spreadsheet in one sitting. You might do a few chapters/scenes at a time. You might get one or two columns completely filled out in one go (I do columns A and C together) but take time to do the rest. Some columns may never get entirely filled out. My tip is to try every column to start with, because you never know what will make something click for you. It’s better to fill out half the columns than none.
Some authors create reverse outlines as they write the first draft. After completing each chapter, they end their writing session by filling out a row with a summary of what they’ve just written. This has the benefit of your memory being fresher, and if it sounds like it’d work for you, please try it! It may help you spot issues early and course correct. However, some authors find too much analysis paralyzing in the first draft stage. Personally, I find it easier and fun to do my outline at the end, in a sugar rush of triumphant celebration at finishing a story. I write it up, stand back dusting my hands, and go “Well, what do we have here?”
And what do we have here?
Things a reverse outline can reveal:
Where does your climax—the peak of suspense, intensity, and emotion—happen in the story? How close to the end? How do you build up to it and climb back down? Are there mini-climaxes earlier in the story to keep readers engaged? Your main plot will have a climax, and so will your subplots and your character arcs. These may be located in different places, or they may all climax together. (Stop snickering, you in the back!)
What’s left unresolved at the end of the book? (For traditional publication, you’ll have the best luck if your first book is a “standalone,” though it may have opportunities for a sequel if it sells well. You might think self-publishing is more forgiving, but in fact, readers may greet a cliffhanger ending with bad reviews if they feel you’re trying to trap them into buying more books for unclear payoff. They may even return the book and demand a refund. However, in both traditional and self-publishing, books later in a series may end in cliffhangers once the author has won readers’ trust by finishing earlier stories in a satisfying way.)
How do the character arcs develop? Anything important enough to write a story about will probably change a person—how are each character’s actions and desires different at the end of the story than they were at the beginning?
How long are questions left unanswered or conflicts left unresolved? You generally want these to last for at least a few chapters to let suspense grow and keep the story flowing. (The author Benjamin Percy, in Thrill Me, speaks of his failed early novels: “I treated chapters like short stories, introducing and resolving trouble in fifteen pages. The containment, the stand-aloneness of my chapters, gave my books a stop-start quality that destroyed any sense of momentum.”) At the same time, each scene should make a little progress, whether positive or negative. It will end with the character a little better off or worse off (or better in some ways, worse in others) than they were before.
Friction, tension, conflict, and struggle make a story richer and more vivid. Even for small and simple goals, let the readers and characters yearn just a bit before you give them what they want. Make sure your payoffs each have setup.
Do you have scenes without action? Or where the action is all internal rather than external: does your protagonist sit around thinking until they change their mind about something? This isn’t fatal—I’ve done it myself on occasion. But try not to make these static scenes too frequent (and internal action is better than no action at all: beware scenes that are pure exposition).
Do you have scenes that are overgrown transitions, moving characters from Point A to Point B? In particular, you have an overgrown transition rather than a proper scene when there aren’t enough questions, conflict, stakes, urgency, or emotional engagement. Make your story more vivid by fleshing out these transitions or removing them (a transition can often become a paragraph or sentence at the beginning of the next scene).
Do any significant events happen off-page or between scenes? Would it be clearer or more impactful for readers if they happen on-page?
Do you spend a lot of wordcount introducing a particular character, setting, or detail that doesn’t go on to play a significant role in the story? Be wary of one-offs: characters, POVs, locations, and apparent subplots that only appear once may be a sign you should develop them further—or take them out entirely. Not always! But make sure it’s clear to readers why you break your story’s pattern. Sometimes, an author will give a character one flashback scene to share backstory. However interesting the backstory, be sure the events of that flashback are relevant to their present-day storyline!
How does each scene fit into to the larger story? How do the subplots connect to each other? If something doesn’t connect, does it belong? Can you flesh it out and connect it more? (Whether you connect it more tightly or delete it often depends on if your story is longer or shorter than you want it to be—see next section.)
You can color-code rows by subplot if that makes things easier for you. The reverse outline can become a very visual document, helping you see things it’s harder to find in a manuscript of text.
Look at scenes that only advance a single plot or subplot, and see how strong they are in the other columns. One way to punch up a sagging scene is to combine it with a second scene and do two things at once. Maybe the scene in which Miranda overhears Jason’s suspicious phone call is also the scene where she reels from the revelation that she’s about to be fired from her dream job (which she learned in the previous chapter). As our friend writing at the Cincinnati Enquirer in February 1947 said, “Life is just one damn thing after another, is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.”
Do tensions and stakes rise over the course of the story? This is often phrased as “things have to get worse and worse for your characters,” but that isn’t the only option. Giving your characters an occasional “break” provides hope, which, for you literary sadists, gives characters more to lose when things get worse again. Hope raises the stakes. And building a character up lets you continue a story for longer because it gives them farther to fall. The occasional achievement can give your character new abilities and resources to make future scenes exciting. Also, alternating hope with loss or disappointment creates a variety in tone and texture; most readers find variety welcome. (This also means you should beware of too many scenes of unmitigated success, even if your story's tone is one of cozy wish fulfillment.) In some genres, both your character and your audience may need occasional injections of hope to be motivated to see the story through. There are exceptions—a short horror novel may be nothing but things getting worse—but overall, don’t worry that you’re failing at suspenseful storytelling if your characters are sometimes happy! But there still should be something missing, an unanswered question, an unachieved goal, or an unresolved risk that keeps the story going. And generally, these risks, goals, questions, and unfulfilled desires should get bigger as the story goes on.
How's the length of your story?
Some writers end up with first drafts way longer than they want. Some wind up with first drafts that are too short. For some authors, each story causes them wordcount-related stress in a different way. And in every manuscript, whatever its overall length, some scenes will go on a bit longer than they need to, while several character details and plot threads will tantalize with their ability to be developed further.
Too long/too short is also a question of the audience you’re writing for. Young adult novels tend to be shorter than adult historical epics. If you’re writing fiction to publish in magazines paying pro rates, you'll often have a better short with a 4,000-word short story than a 9,000-word novelette. And if you don’t intend to write a novella (I love them, but they can be tricky to sell), then a 40,000-word “novel” probably needs more development.
If your story or scene is too long, either:
Too much is happening
You’re giving too many details about what’s happening
(It may be both at once, of course.)
You’ll want to make changes in that order: first, decide what needs to happen in the story. As I advised earlier, making some of it happen simultaneously can reduce the number of scenes and make each scene more intense. But upon consideration, and with the help of your reverse outline, you may find one or two excess subplots. Save them for a different story.
Once you’ve reduced your number of scenes, if you’re still longer than you want, look at each scene and tighten paragraphs and lines. But that fine-tuning is something to work on later, in the line-editing rather than organization or structural edit (what I'm calling the second draft in this post, and which we editors also call developmental editing).
If your story is too short, either:
Not enough is happening
You’re not giving enough details about what is happening
Should you add a subplot, or draw out a subplot you currently have? Do the characters’ problems get resolved too quickly? Have you raised enough narrative questions? Given enough answers? Is the conflict strong enough and are the stakes high enough? Have you shown how high the stakes are? Look at where you’ve used narrative summary. Would any of this be more interesting or dramatic as a scene? Are there sentences you could expand to paragraphs, or paragraphs into chapters? Don’t pad the story, but flesh it out.
You may want to do more research, especially if you put research aside to complete your first draft (which you've done—congratulations!) Learning about your characters’ jobs, the world they inhabit, and processes within it can open up lots of avenues, many of which you wouldn’t have predicted.
Or you may write short because you know so much about the story. You’ve been developing this magic system since you were in high school, so you don’t realize how weird and wondrous it is to your readers and how much they’d enjoy a (vivid, active, non-lecture) tour of it. Now’s the time to add some more scenes of your protagonist learning to use magic! Or, switching genres, a mystery writer may have meticulously planned the crime—but they need to add enough description that the reader can follow the logistics.
The emotions of revision
Personally, I think adding more scenes and details is great fun. You get to write fanfiction of your first draft—and publish it! However, expanding a story can take time and requires you to keep track of what you’re doing. The record in the reverse outline will help with that.
Cutting scenes, plot threads, characters, and even favorite sentences can be melancholy. I encourage writers to save what they cut in case it can fit in a future story—even if it doesn’t, this feels less like a final execution. However, sometimes cutting something is a relief. You’ve had a feeling that element wasn’t working out, and now you can let it go.
Some writers may get a little too eager to cut. It might seem like the easy way out, but if you delete everything that causes you trouble, the story will get smaller and smaller, and it might wind up less interesting as a result. You’re also depriving yourself of the chance to stretch your creativity and try new things. (Mary Oliver in A Poetry Handbook warns that “deletion teaches nothing.”) It’s a judgment call: does this troublesome bit have enough potential that it’s worth rescuing through revision? Try sleeping on it in case your subconscious offers a new solution you hadn’t expected. If that doesn’t pan out, you can always save the idea to try again in a different story. As Matthew Salesses says in Craft in the Real World, “Some encouragement (hopefully)! The bulk of successful writing is in the fact that you have an endless number of tries. Persistence is key.”
To wrap up, a few more uses of reverse outlining:
Reread your story in light of the outline. Going between the outline and each scene, consider this question: does your outline describe what’s actually on the page or what you intended to write? If your outline is more wishful than actual, that's still progress: it's helped you express your intentions, which is a step that brings them closer to reality. Now the reverse outline has become a planning outline for your next draft.
Similarly, some authors find it tricky to revise existing scenes. Instead, they write the second draft more or less from scratch in a new file. They trust their memory to give them back the best parts of the stroy and to drop or rework what wasn’t succeeding. If you want to use this approach but still need some guidance, the reverse outline can be made into a new outline.
You can reverse outline other people’s books! It's fun and insightful to examine how a favorite author works on a scene-by-scene level. Heck, it can also give insight into how an author you can’t stand, but who is undeservedly successful, works on a scene-by-scene level. Maybe you can learn from their success after all.
Again, here’s the reverse outline template in Google Sheets, with an example from one of my own stories filling out the first few rows. Make a copy and make it yours!
i really genuinely wish I could hit chatgpt with my bare fists and hear its pityful electronic voice fade into glitched robotic gibberish and choking beeps as I hit it before I smash it for good and it shuts the fuck up forever
Chapter 1 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 31 || Masterpost | AO3 Link | FF.net Link
Fandom / Genre: Nanatsu no Taizai (Seven Deadly Sins) / Canon-Divergent and Hurt/Comfort
Pairings: Meliodas/Elizabeth, Zeldris/Gelda, Meliodas & Zeldris & Elizabeth & Gelda
Overall Story Warnings: Angst with a happy ending, Canon-typical violence, Canonical character death, Canon temporary character death, Cursed characters, Lmk if I need to add anything else!
Chapter Warnings: N/A!
Story Summary:
Eternal…
life.
reincarnation.
silence.
and chains.
For 3,000 long and painful years, these four have been doing all they can to lift their curses. They have failed, again and again and again. With only a sliver of hope left, they try once more.
-
Or, what if Zeldris accepted Meliodas’ offer to go with him 3,000 years ago?
"Well, she's intent on lying for now, so I guess you, me, and Gelda are on guard duty until further notice," Meliodas declared as he trudged down the stairs into the main floor. "It doesn't seem like she's too keen on using her explosions, even if she could blast off those cuffs easily. So we should be good for a while."
"You're certain Lady Gelda will be alright watching over Guila alone?" Elizabeth asked as Meliodas joined her and Zeldris at the bar, where Elizabeth had been practicing sign with Zeldris.
Zeldris hummed. "She should be fine. But, I'll probably join her soon. I doubt Guila knows sign, and I think it'd be a good way to annoy her."
She tilted her head. "Annoy her?"
"There's a lot of ways to get information out of people," Meliodas started, hopping over the bar to pour himself a drink. "Torture is the one most people imagine first, but I've never been a fan of that one, really." He grew quiet for a moment before shaking his head. "Interrogation is close behind, but it doesn't work as well unless you have blackmail, or use torture with it. And neither of those are actually efficient ways of getting information—you're more likely to get false facts, because they're just trying to get the pain to stop or keep a secret safe. The moment they get a chance, while you're verifying the information, they're slipping away.
"But, taking more passive methods yields better results. We can't just pamper her, that's too obvious and bribery only works if we know what she wants. We don't. But, we can wear down her walls. I doubt we can get her to trust us, but, if we can get her to the point where she's high strung on emotions, desperate to just leave because there's no other end in sight to being constantly annoyed… we can get the information we need."
"One of the ways we can do so is by utilizing sign," Zeldris took over. "She won't know what we're saying, because as far as I'm aware, while people can learn it in Liones, it's not often taught."
Elizabeth blinked slowly before nodding. "I… you're right, I had the opportunity but didn't learn it, I doubt Guila would have had the same opportunity. She wouldn't have been from any higher class families, I didn't recognize her name."
Meliodas snapped his fingers and pointed at her with a grin. "Right!" He tapped off a mug and settled at the bar. "It's just really, really annoying that this will be a much longer endeavor. We're gonna have to be even more careful, not just with making sure other Holy Knights don't come after us, but with keeping her in line."
"We'll need to get creative with it, that's for sure," Zeldris agrees. "But that's a problem we'll tackle as we go." He huffs and gives Meliodas an exasperated look. "King had a point about the Sacred Treasures, this would be so much easier if you still had yours."
"It would have?" Elizabeth asks, leaning back slightly as she glances between the brothers. Meliodas' expression shifts into a slight grimace. She's been having her doubts about King's words—Guila's accusation of his disloyalty and his own hesitancy to help them all fight her has left a bitter taste in her mouth. "I know Sir King made them sound incredibly powerful. And his certainly is, but would they really help with keeping Guila in line?"
"Mine likely would have," Meliodas admits. "Not necessarily because of the scale in power, though it would be useful… I wouldn't…" He looks away and Elizabeth furrows her brows when he falls silent for almost half a minute. Just when she's about to ask, Zeldris raps the wooden counter and Meliodas shakes his head, clearing his throat. "Lostvayne's core power was duplication, so you can see how it would make things with Guila a bit easier," Meliodas finishes with a wry smile.
"And you just had to go and sell it," Zeldris reminds with an eye-roll, which has Meliodas huffing.
"I didn't hear you objecting back then."
"That's because you did it when only Gelda was with you and ignored her signing you to stop the deal."
"Lies and slander," Meliodas waves as he looks back to Elizabeth. "See what I've had to deal with all these years? As if I'd ignore his wife, I'm not that stupid."
"The amount of times I've had to dodge fire aimed at you because you ignored Gelda begs to differ," Hawk pipes up from the stairs, the words following the gentle clop of Hawk's feet.
"Gelda just agrees with me that you'd make a really nice roast, that's all."
"She does not!" Hawk's voice squeaks in the middle as he trots up to the bar, glaring up at the blonde. "And anyway, don't you have burn scars proving my point?" Zeldris snickers as Meliodas blinks at Hawk.
"How do you know about those?" A moment beats by before he's whirling on Zeldris. "You did not."
"He would have found out at some point."
"He didn't tell me where," Hawk says at the same time. Elizabeth glances between the three as Meliodas accuses of Zeldris being a traitor, and Hawk counters the roasting jokes with more facts that apparently Meliodas didn't know he knew. She giggles along with them as their words fade more to the background, realizing this might be where Meliodas and Zeldris got their perspective on interrogations from.
She's not sure if she can use annoyance… but she does have some questions she wants answered, so maybe she can be a little bit of a pest until they decide to leave. Looking once more between the brothers and Hawk, their voices louder and Meliodas and Hawk more animated in their arguments, she slips away from the bar to the door.
-
King's still outside, hovering at the overhang staring up at the stars in silence. Elizabeth had heard from Hawk that apparently King was adamant on not sharing a room with Ban, the only other room really available, and had escaped to stay outside with Diane.
Elizabeth has no doubt he hears her coming outside, the light tap-tap tap-tap of her feet deafening in the quiet night. He doesn't say anything as she walks along the porch, coming to a stop and leaning on the railing just a few feet away from him. She starts by looking out across the ghostly hills surrounding Tala village, then up at the sky as well, tracking the few constellations Margaret loved to show her.
She felt her heart spike at the thought of her eldest sister, almost feeling how her thoughts began to stray into wonderings of how she was, where she was, before forcibly stomping down that path. Elizabeth swallowed and continued to stare up at the sky, glancing at the Sloth Sin to find him still in the air beside her. She let the seconds tick by and form into minutes, refusing to verbally get his attention. As the minutes drew on though, she made her scrutinizing more obvious, looking away less and less until she was outright staring.
Margaret would chide me for staring, she almost laughs to herself at the thought, biting her tongue to distract herself from the pang. Later, when she writes in her journal she can stew in those thoughts.
It's effective though, her quiet presence. She watches as King grows more tense, though whether it's stubbornness or an actual discomfort that keeps him from simply floating away or acknowledging her she doesn't know.
He breaks before she does, huffing and flipping over on Chastiefol, knuckles white as he grips the green fabric and stares her down. "Yes, Princess?"
Elizabeth pushes her luck, staying quiet for a few more heartbeats before answering. "I was curious about something, from earlier."
He takes a deep breath, and the way his hands relax looks forced, even to her. "About?" he prompts, cocking his head slightly.
"It was what Guila said, while we were in the Necropolis." Elizabeth looks away from him to stare down at the railing, tracing the wooden grooves. "You were working with the Holy Knights?"
"A mutual agreement…." King starts immediately, and glancing at him proves the frown his voice was already conveying. "They had information I needed, and I had what they needed."
"… Which was?" Elizabeth hedges after he lapses into another silence. King looks away from her, and it takes Elizabeth a moment to realize it's in the direction of Liones.
"Knowledge," he admits after another moment, turning his gaze back onto her. "Of the other Sins. The Holy Knights spent ten years trying to hunt most of them down, only to come up with nothing. When I showed up after— after… I guess they saw it as a perfect opportunity."
"You actually gave them information?"
King scoffs. "I mean, I had to, to ensure they kept up their end of the deal."
"You would betray your comrades like that—"
"I didn't betray anyone," King hisses, eyes narrowing and drifting closer to the ground. "Not anyone who didn't deserve it, anyways. And there was only one of us who did." His expression pinches and he looks away again. "At least, I was pretty sure he did."
Elizabeth crosses her arms, scratching at a healing cut on her bicep. What information did he give away? Who did he think was a traitor? Why would he change his mind?
"When you hesitated in the Necropolis… that's when you doubted yourself, isn't it?"
She watches the hostility slide off the fairy king's face, the way he curls around Chastiefol. "Why are you so curious all of a sudden?"
"None of it makes sense to me, is all. My father spoke so highly of all of you, how well you all worked as a team. I never thought that you'd ever— that any of you would hesitate to help one another, if what he said was true. Does it— did it have to do with how you became a Sin?"
King laughs. It's a sharp and short sound, almost startled, and such a contrast to his young boyish appearance. He follows the laugh with a huff. "You certainly insinuated it earlier."
"Was I right?"
His lips thin into a frown, and he gives Chastiefol a squeeze, twisting the fabric in his fingers. "You're persistent."
"I just want to trust you all." Silence falls around them again, and Elizabeth sighs, squeezing her own arms even tighter.
When King doesn't answer any of her questions, she tries a different tactic. "If you were communicating with the Holy Knights, then you know about what they've done to my family. Lady Gelda has assured me that none of you will hurt me, but I can't help but take the information that you were working with them and not lose faith in that promise. Not unless I get some clarification."
King slowly exhales and drifts even closer to the ground. "… And I don't know you well enough to trust you with the answers to your questions." He looks to the Boar Hat's door and tilts his head. "Even the Captain doesn't know. I…" he huffs, glaring at the ground.
Elizabeth bites her lip. "Do none of you know each other's… the crimes, that made you become Sins?"
"It's not that none of us know. We just… don't talk about them. I guess neither Zeldris or Gelda gave you the warning."
"He mentioned not asking Ban about what was wrong, this morning. But I wasn't aware of any taboo around asking about the crimes directly."
He tilts his head again, eyes flickering over her face as he considers her words. After another minute of silence, King relaxes his grip around Chastiefol. "If it's any assurance… I won't betray any of them now. I… I have a lot to think over, reexamine what I thought I knew. My 'hesitation' today originated from what I believed wholeheartedly before."
Elizabeth takes a deep breath, and offers King a small smile. "Then I'm sorry for what I said before, Sir King."
King returns her tiny smile with one of his own, and bows his head. "Already forgiven, Princess."
I heard this metaphor growing up, and in my case, it backfired supremely, because I went out into my neighbor's backyard where a rose bush was growing, and the one I tested had like 30 petals (it was yellow, but definitely a rose of some kind), and as a very logical lass, I came to the conclusion that you could have premarital sex AT LEAST ten times before your future husband would even notice something was up. Moral of the story? Test your metaphors on the weirdest and most neurodivergent child you know before writing your weird religious propaganda.
I hate how nonbinary and trans intersex people are left out of trans discussion.
We can’t be sorted into TMA or TME easily, so people who use those labels tend to sort us based on our assigned sex.
Labels commonly used by intersex trans people are called useless.
Nonbinary people aren’t even included in trans rights posts half the time.
Intersex people are used as a way to prove that trans people exist.
Nonbinary people’s identities are disregarded and we are either considered basically just our assigned gender/sex, or basically a trans man/woman, depending on which thing makes us easier to hate or disregard.
It feels like binary and perisex trans people don’t give a shit about us, and it also seems like they don’t think the specific oppression we face is real. If they do, they don’t fucking talk about it.
Accepting and supporting trans people means accepting ALL trans people. Not just the binary ones, not just the perisex ones, not just the white ones, not just the abled ones, not just the ones you’re comfortable with. ALL OF US.
Talk about the lesser represented trans people, PLEASE. Talk about people with unconventional identities. You don’t support trans rights unless you support those of us with more complicated or conflicting identities.
