Alright, y’all, I’m going to be reblogging plotting tools throughout most of October, but let’s do a stripped down, bare bones plot prep for anyone with just a vague idea. Let’s talk about the key parts of a plot outline, the Five Core Scenes.
Opening: This is your view of the world before you decide to toss your protagonist life upside down. Your goal is to establish two things:
Your protagonist’s life. If you follow any of the Hero’s Journey form of outlining, this is called the Ordinary World. If it’s contemporary, you’ll probably focus on what takes up the main character’s time - job, family, school, etc. If it’s fantasy, you’ll also be doing that, but establishing that he also flies a dragon to his 9-to-5. Basic stuff.
Your protagonist’s problem. Yes, you’re going to give the main character a problem before the book kicks off. You can make your plot revolve around a person who’s perfectly happy, but hell, we’re writers, we want our characters to suffer. If there’s something they want (a person, a thing, a life change) or don’t know they need, it’s good to start with it right off the bat.
Inciting Event: This can be tricky, but it’s basically The Point of No Return. Your character can’t go back to their old life, you blew it up. The door to the Ordinary World is closed. They witnessed a murder, got bit by a vampire, dumped by their boyfriend, etc. The character might think they can go back, but they can’t. This usually kicks off Act II.
Now, the middle is known as the dreaded slog, but I’m going to share a secrect: You want to split Act II into parts A and B, the middle split by…
False Victory/False Defeat: In the first half of Act II, your character is trying to solve their problem the wrong way. They may think the solution is to cooperate with the police, seek out a cure, try to win their boyfriend back, but they’re going to hit a wall, and hit it hard. In the False Victory turning point, your character thinks they’ve gotten what they want - only to realize it’s fixed nothing at all. In the False Defeat, all seems lost - but actually, they’ve found a new path. Either way, the second half of Act II will be doing things the Right Way - solving the murder themselves, embracing vampirism to find the douche to turned them, finally flirting back with that new neighbor, etc. There’s more urgency in your second half, because your character can know see the way to solve their problem - they just have to get there.
The Climax: No brainer, though you’re actually going to take a few steps back to the start of Act III to figure out how you get to the climax. If the climax is confronting the murderer, how did the protagonist figure out who that is? If it’s a showdown with the god of vampires, how do we track him down? You can write “big fight” at the start of your notes, but you’ll have an easier time actually writing it if you flesh out how it happened a bit more.
The Denouement: Yes, you need a denouement. Yes, it’s helpful to figure out how your story is resolved before you write The End. The whole point is the end of your story, the lesson you want to leave the readers, the emotion you want to have. Figuring this out first will make getting there a whole lot easier, trust me.
You are going to have plenty of important scenes in between, but pinning these down will make the rest a whole lot easier - and if you’re mostly a pantser, you can keep these big goals in mind as you write toward them.
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