Dramatic characters, inventive plotlines, exciting and intense situations are not achieved through accident or “good luck.” The writers of great books zealously learn the craft of their profession so they can release the power and depth of their imagination and experience.
— Leonard Bishop, Dare to Be a Great Writer
In 1173, the architect Bonanno Pisano began construction of his dream project: the bell tower for the cathedral in Pisa, Italy. It wasn’t until two years later that a horrible problem was discovered. The tower was beginning to lean.
There was nothing wrong with the design of the tower. The problem was the foundation. The soil was too soft. And all the subsequent work could not correct the mistake.
That’s what can happen with a work of fiction. If certain foundational elements are missing, the story is going to sag. You can avoid major problems by some focused thinking about your story before you write.
One of the most common questions new fiction writers ask is, Should I do a complete outline before I write? And if so, how extensive should it be?
To put this in a little historical perspective, let us look at a long-standing feud between the NOPs and the Ops.
The NOPs are the “no outline” people. These happy folk love to frolic in the daisies of their imaginations as they write. With nary a care, they let the characters and images that sprout in their minds do all the leading. They follow along, happily recording the adventures.
Ray Bradbury is a NOP. In Zen in the Art of Writing he says:
Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. That is all Plot should ever be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.
The joy of being a NOP is that you get to fall in love every day. But as in love and life, there is heartache along the way.
The heartache comes when you look back and see nothing resembling plot. Some fresh writing, yes, but where is the cohesion? Some brilliant word gems flash, but they may be scattered over a plotless desert.
The Ops — outline people — seek security above all. They lay out a plot with as much specificity as possible. They may use 3" × 5" cards, spread out on the floor or pinned to corkboard, and rework the pattern many times before writing.
Or they’ll write a plot treatment, forty or fifty pages written in the present tense. Then they’ll edit that like they would a full manuscript. And only then will they begin the actual novel.
Albert Zuckerman, an OP, says in Writing the Blockbuster Novel:
No sane person would think of setting out to construct a skyscraper or even a one-family home without a detailed set of plans. A big novel must have the literary equivalent of beams and joists strong enough to sustain it excitingly from beginning to end, and it also must contain myriad interlocking parts fully as complex as those in any building type.
The value of the OP approach is that, with experience, one can virtually guarantee a solidly structured plot. The highs and lows will come at the right time. There are no unhappy tangents.
The danger, however, is the lack of that freshness and spontaneity the NOPs are known for. An OP may get to a place where one of the characters is screaming to do something other than what’s written down on a scene card. The OP fights the character, whipping him back into submission. But in doing so, he may have missed the exact angle that would make his plot original.
There is no single, inviolable way to lay a fictional foundation. Some of the best writers out there have different approaches.
Robert Crais, author of Hostage and The Last Detective, is an OP, a self-described “plotter.” He likes to know as much as he can about the story and scenes he’s going to write before he gets going. But his books are still action packed and full of surprising twists.
On the other side of the fence is NOP Elizabeth Berg, author of such titles as Range of Motion and Never Change. She starts with a feeling rather than a roadmap. For her, the joy in writing fiction comes with the daily discoveries of things she did not know were inside her.
David Morrell, author of numerous bestsellers, takes a middle path. He likes to start a free-form letter to himself as the subject takes shape in his mind. He’ll add to it daily, letting the thing grow in whatever direction his mind takes him. What this method does is mine rich ore in the subconscious and imagination, yielding deeper story structure.
But when it comes to the writing, says Morrell, “I try to let the story’s drama carry me along and reveal surprises. Often, the best moments in a scene are those that I never imagined ahead of time. In a way, I try to entertain myself as much as I hope to entertain the reader.”
Jerry Jenkins is the author of the best-selling fiction series of all time, Left Behind. Ultimately, it will be fourteen books, with a prequel and sequel. Naturally for a project of that length, Jenkins must have constructed a huge outline, so as not to get lost.
He didn’t.“My structure is intuitive,” Jenkins says, “and I write the whole manuscript, beginning to end, chronologically, bouncing from perspective to perspective by instinct. I’m gratified people think it looks carefully designed, but it’s not blueprinted in advance.”
When readers ask him why he chose to kill off their favorite character, Jenkins responds, “I didn’t kill him off; I found him dead.”
My personal message to the Ops and the NOPs — be true to yourself, but try a little of the other guys’ method. You may be delighted at what you come up with.
For example, NOPs could look at their first drafts as if they were big outlines! That first draft might be the exploratory notes for a plot that works. Once it is done, the NOP can step back and see what’s there and reformulate the outline into something that is more plot solid.
A simple way to do this is to read over your first draft, then write a two- or three-page synopsis. Now put on your plotting hat and edit that synopsis until you come up with a roadmap for your story.
Then you’re ready to do a second draft in NOP style. As Bradbury advises, don’t rewrite it, relive it.
You Ops could work on your outlines as if they were first drafts. If you do a manuscript-style outline, write it with passion and a sense of play. Let things happen that you don’t plan.
If you work with cards, generate whole bunches of scene ideas, even crazy ones. Then put the cards all together and shuffle them. What sort of pattern does this suggest?
You can tighten your outline then, according to your OP instincts. But you’ll have generated some things that couldn’t have come from a strictly left-brained regimen.
Any method will work so long as it is your method. But I would counsel you to do two things before you write.
[1] Use the LOCK system. As explained in chapter one, these are the elements that give you a solid foundation for your novel. If there is a glaring weakness in your story, it will probably be revealed here.
Work with the elements until they are strong enough for you to consider writing a whole book.
[2] Write the back cover copy. When you are comfortable with your LOCK elements, move on to the writing of your back cover copy. This is the marketing copy that compels a reader to buy your book. This is what you see on the back of paperback novels in your bookstore.
What you want to do is create a few paragraphs that excite your own interest, enough to compel you to move on to the next step. You can even pause at this point and share your back cover copy with some trusted friends to get their take on it. If no one can see the excitement in the story, you have the chance to rework things before spending all that time writing an outline. For example:
Sam Jones is a cop who has fallen from grace. He’s battling the bottle and losing his family. Then he is assigned to the biggest murder case in years — the mayor has been killed in a gruesome way.
It seems open and shut, with a prime suspect — a political rival — being the target of the investigation. It may just be the case that brings Sam out of his darkness.
But as he gets closer to the truth, things are not as clear as they first appeared. Not only that, but the killer is stalking him and his family. The message is clear — drop the investigation or lose your life.
Will Sam be able to stay alive long enough to find out who really killed the mayor? Can he save his own family?
And if he does, what will the cost be?
Add plot elements to the back cover copy. You are getting more specific. Hone these paragraphs until you are bubbling over with excitement.
So important is the back cover copy to your plotting — it is the very least you should have before you when you begin to write — that I’ve created a worksheet found in Appendix B for your own use.
Now you’re ready for the next step — employing a plotting system.
You may think that if you are a pure NOP, there is no such thing as a plotting system.
Not necessarily. In fact, you will benefit greatly by going at your wild flights of literary genius with a little bit of good old left-brain discipline.
Don’t worry, you will be allowed all the freedom and joy of creation you desire. But you’ll be happy in the long run that you added a little order to your creative chaos.
[1] Set yourself a writing quota. Each day you write — and preferably that is every day — you should not leave your writing desk until you have completed your quota. The magic number for many writers seems to be one thousand words. You’ll have to find the number that works best for you. Frankly, that is easier for those of you who are pure NOPs because you are discovering your writing as you go along and as it pours out of you.
In fact, writing quickly is the best way for a NOP to go. What you love is getting those wonderful, stream-of-consciousness words flowing out of your flying fingers.
Further, you may want to attempt to write first thing in the morning, in order to take advantage of what author Dorothea Brande called the “unconscious on the ascendant.” Those first images in your mind as it emerges from sleep into the conscious state are gold.
So you do your quota, and if it’s going good, you press on and do more. You have fun; you let your characters tell the story.
Can you go on and finish a whole novel this way? Certainly, but you will have a lot of rewriting and rethinking to do. That’s all right. Some writers like to do it that way.
[2] Begin your writing day by rereading what you wrote the day before.
I recommend you read your previous day’s work in hard copy. You are not to make major changes at this time; you can only clean up minor things or add to what you have written.
Here’s how you add. When you reach a place in the previous day’s pages where you want to add something, put a letter with a circle around it. Start with the letter A. You may have an A and a B and a C. (This, by the way, is a Natalie Goldberg idea.)
Now begin your new writing by doing the added portions. For example, you’re writing a story about growing up in Los Angeles. You decide that in the section describing your street you want to add something about a creepy neighbor who lives around the block. You have placed an A where you want this copy to be inserted.
Write about the creepy neighbor. Let yourself go. This section could be one paragraph or it could turn into an entire chapter. When you’re done with it, cut and paste it into the master document. Or you may not want to add anything to your previous day’s work, and that’s fine. After reading it over, begin writing today’s pages.
[3] One day per week, record your plot journey. Take time to record what you have done using a plot grid. What you are doing is, using Ray Bradbury’s terms, recording the characters’ footprints in the snow. This will be incredibly useful to you later on.
You also use this grid to record dates and times so you know at a glance how your plot is stacking up logically.
There you have it. That wasn’t so painful, was it? Be glad. You are still a NOP. Now you can use the plotting suggestions in the rest of this book to make what you have in front of you that much stronger. It’s a win-win situation.
There are as many ways to outline as there are writers. Most working Ops develop their own systems over the years, picking and choosing from what other writers do.
I’ve written novels every which way, from NOP to OP and in between. So I feel qualified to offer a selection of systems for you to choose from. Try them out. See what works for you. That’s the way to go and grow.
Writers have been using index cards since index cards were invented. I suppose they used slips of paper before that. Blaise Pascal, the great genius of the seventeenth century, was planning to write a huge treatise in defense of Christianity. He kept his notes on pieces of paper tied up in little bundles. He died before he could start his magnum opus, but his notes were published as the Pensées, one of the great books of the Western world.
So index cards may be just right for you.
There are software programs that simulate index cards and allow you to manipulate them on the screen. Some writers find it a little too constricting, however, to be bound by the parameters of a computer monitor.
Personally I like the feel of the cards in my hands. I can take them with me anywhere. (There’s nothing wrong with being a bit of a Luddite when it comes to writing.)
With index cards, you can then spread them out before you on the floor, pin them to a big corkboard, or do whatever else you want to do with them. Cards can be easily switched around or thrown away. You can put them in your pocket and work on them while you’re sipping your morning coffee at the local cafe. If inspiration hits you while you’re in the shower, you can towel off and jot a note on an index card, and throw it on the pile.
Flexibility is the key with index cards, and if you tend to be somewhat more right-brained most of the time, index cards are a great way to harness your frequent bursts of genius. Later, with the help of your left brain, you can lay out a solid story.
You can begin your scene cards at any point in the planning process. Perhaps you want to do some work on your LOCK elements or your characters. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you create a stack of scene ideas and then arrange them for structure.
Here is one suggested method. Spend a few hours coming up with vivid scenes in your mind and recording these scenes on index cards. You don’t have to do this all in one sitting. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. You’ll find as you start collecting scenes that your writer-mind will work in the background, and when you come back to the cards, you’ll have ideas bubbling up to the surface that will be exciting to you.
A scene card can be as simple as this:
Monica drives to John’s house; chased by bikers. Saved by Fireman Dan.
Carry around blank index cards in an envelope or small file pocket. When you have some free time or scheduled creative time, take out the stack and start writing scene ideas.
Don’t think about structure yet. You’ll come up with scenes in random order. Just let your mind play.
And don’t think about what scenes you’ll keep. Later you’ll toss out the ones that don’t work (only don’t toss them out for good; put them in a discard pile because you may want to come back to them at some point).
On the previous page, there’s an example of a fairly simple scene card. You also can make them more formal, with a setting as the key indicator:
STARBUCKS
Bill confronts Stan about Monica.
Fight.
Ex-Green Bay Packer Lyle throws Bill and Stan through window.
Eventually, you’ll have a stack of scenes. You’ve done your LOCK work and written the back cover copy. You’re ready to start getting serious about structure.
Think about your ending. You should have a possible climactic scene in mind. Perhaps all you know is that you want your Lead to win in a big way and you want a certain kind of resonance. Fine. Put that down on a card. This will be your last, or next-to-last scene card. Give it as much detail as you’re comfortable with.
The point is to have something to shoot for.
Now spend some time thinking about the major scenes that your plot will require. You will no doubt have in mind a number of these. They may be less than fully formed, but you have a feeling about them. Give them as much detail as possible, but don’t sweat it.
Come up with a gripping opening scene (if you haven’t already), and put that on a card.
Then figure out the disturbance, and put that on a card.
Next, create the doorway of no return that leads into Act II, and the second doorway that leads into Act III.
You are now ready to lay out your cards for the first time. Use the floor or a large table or wherever else you’re comfortable being the hovering god over your story.
Put your opening scene card on the left, and your climactic scene card on the right. Put the disturbance card near the opening, and the first doorway a bit after that. Put the second doorway card near the end.
Now fill in your story in between. Space out your big scenes in the most logical order, usually meaning that the scenes grow progressively more intense as you move toward that last card.
If there seems to be a gap between scenes, space that needs filling, put a blank card or cards there. Try to get a feel for the rhythm of the story this way.
You should be getting an idea of the big picture now. Your plot will begin to feel like a cohesive whole.
Play with these cards for at least a week. Add scenes and take scenes out. If you have the sense that a certain scene is going to go in a certain place, but you’re not sure yet what the details will be, put a blank card there. Maybe you want to have a reaction scene following some intense action. You can write “Reaction scene” and move on.
That’s the beauty of the index card system.
You can get even fancier. If your plot involves multiple leads or numerous subplots, each of these can be recorded on different colored cards. Or you can get sticky notes of different colors to put on the cards as codes. You can lay out the cards by color in straight lines, so the plots all run parallel to each other. Then, from above, you can integrate the different cards at different points in a single line, and there is your master plot.
Or you can put your cards out in a plotline and character line. The plotline records the action, and a character line records what’s going on inside the character along the way. You can then create a nice character arc for your story.
Once you’ve got a pretty solid order, number the cards in pencil. Then you can get them back in order after you shuffle the cards!
That’s right. Shuffle them like a Vegas poker deck. This is a cool idea from Robert Kernan’s excellent Building Better Plots. Now go through the cards two at a time in this random order.
What you’re looking for are new connections between plot elements, some fresh perspectives on the story. You may then want to revise your structure accordingly.
There are variations upon the index card system. One writer friend of mine, a very successful novelist, takes a long section of butcher paper and along the top puts down the various beats of the three-act structure and hero’s journey. She makes a long column out of each of these beats. Then she gets different colored Post-It notes, representing her major characters, and records scenes on these. She then sticks them on the paper until it becomes a symphony of colors.
At the end of the day, she rolls up the butcher paper and places it in a tube that is usually used to hold large maps. This tube has a strap so she can carry it over her shoulder. When she wants to work on it again, out it comes, unrolling in all its glory.
Finally, you begin writing, scene by scene. I suggest that after each group of three or four scenes, you lay out your cards again. New ideas and twists may come to you. Create new cards if you want. Rearrange others. Add to what you’ve written on the cards.
It’s all up to you. You’ll find this system highly flexible and creative.
I believe it was E.L. Doctorow who compared his plotting to driving at night with the headlights on. You have an idea as to your direction, but you can see only as far as the headlights. When you drive to that point you can see a little farther. And so on, until you reach your destination.
In other words, you can outline as you roll along. And why not? Nothing in the writers’ rule book — even the OP’s rule book — says you have to outline completely before you begin writing. In fact, even for an OP, that may not be the way to go.
Why not? Because there is so much you discover about your story and characters as you write that it is sometimes best not to have a comprehensive outline chiseled in stone. That might cause you to resist the fresh material that has come up and get back to your preset ideas.
With the headlights system, you don’t face that tendency. Here’s how it can work.
Begin your journey, as always, with the LOCK system and back cover copy. You should have an idea of where you want to end up. That would be the final chapter. What sort of feeling are you going for? It can be vague and may even change radically, but it’s always nice to start a journey with a destination in mind.
Using scene dynamics (see chapter seven) and the principles for starting off strong (chapter three), write your opening chapter.
When you get to the end of the chapter, immediately jot down your ideas for the next few chapters.
You should have plenty of story material cooking in your mind at this point. Now look at what your headlights see up ahead.
Generate scene ideas by asking the following questions:
Your notes can be as full or as scanty as suits your preference. For example, let’s say you’ve written an opening to your coming-of-age story, which has your lead character, a teenager named Sally, moving into a new house in a new town. At the end of the chapter, she sneaks a peek out her bedroom window and sees a boy from across the street staring at her.
Now what? You write the following:
Chapter 2: Next day, Sally walks to store where she sees the boy again. He tries to talk to her. She runs away.
Chapter 3: That night, Sally’s father lectures her on how to make friends. They don’t communicate well. Blow up.
Chapter 4: Monday. First day at new school. Sally is harassed by a jerk. The mystery boy saves her.
And there you have your outline for the next few scenes. If you want to flesh out the scenes a little more before writing them, go ahead. For example:
Chapter 2: Next day. Raining. Sally walks to the store to get some school supplies. She is at once enchanted by and somewhat afraid of her new environment. There are contrasting images of beautiful gardens and rundown homes, of fresh smells and the odor of dirty, wet streets. She thinks about her friends back in Connecticut. At the store, she is about to grab some notebook paper when she sees the boy. Once again, he’s staring at her, this time with a smile on his face. He comes toward her. Frightened for some reason, Sally tries to get out of the store, bumping into people, etc. She is sure she’s being stalked.
That’s how, step by step, you both discover and outline your novel. You drive as far as your headlights allow. Enjoy the ride!
Some very successful writers, like Ken Follett, create long narrative outlines for their books. This is also called a treatment. It can run between twenty and forty pages, maybe more.
The narrative outline is written in the present tense. It can include a bit of dialogue, but only what is crucial to the story. What you’re trying to create is a large canvas overview of the story.
Here is what a treatment might look like:
Randy Miller is a big man at Taft High School. He is the star of the football team and hangs around with all the right people.
So why should a scrawny little guy like Bob be of any interest to him? Because Bob is teased mercilessly by the bigger guys, yet seems to have a serene way of taking it. There is a serenity inside Bob that Randy wishes he could figure out.
Randy would like to talk to him, but doing so would be socially unacceptable — uncool! There is a real class system at school. This is especially evident at lunch time. There is only one cool table, where Randy and friends sit; and one definite outcast table where Bob sits, often alone.
One day Randy observes as his buddies pull down Bob’s pants and stick him head first in a garbage can. As Bob struggles out amidst the laughter all around, Randy just shakes his head at him.“Man, you are such a dweeb. Why don’t you stop being dweeby?”
“What do you mean?” Bob says.
“Everybody’s got potential. You want me to teach you?”
Bob doesn’t answer, and Randy just waves him off as a lost cause.
Meanwhile, Randy is struggling in American Lit, taught by the tough Mrs. Agnes. Tough because she cares about these kids, and will not let them just skate by. She tries to bring out of every student deeper insights than they otherwise have, through poetry and books. Bob does well in this class …
This narrative outline will be revised and edited several times until you feel you have a solid story.
As you already know from earlier chapters, I’m a big fan of the books of David Morrell, especially Lessons From a Lifetime of Writing. Morrell’s method is geared toward getting deeper into your story idea, finding out why you really want to write it. It’s a trip into the subconscious and the place where real writing power resides.
It’s a simple concept. You write a letter to yourself. You ask yourself questions about your idea. The most important question is, Why? Keep asking that one over and over.
I used this method for my novel Breach of Promise. Here is the first part of what I wrote:
Why am I writing this? I am writing this because I want readers to feel the story of a man coming to learn what it is to be a father, only to have the system tear his guts out. And the fact that he’s discriminated against even while doing what’s right … wow. What does he do?
Is that all? Well, I want readers to love Mark and follow his spiritual journey. And why do people love someone? If he cares about someone else (his daughter, of course; another character?). If he is vulnerable (worries, fears, hopes — and he’s the underdog).
What, exactly, is the journey about? He goes from being a guy trying to be an actor, to someone who discovers deeper values — -his daughter, for one. He really loves his daughter.
Why? What is it about having a daughter that is so important to this guy? Maybe he had a kid sister? Who died in a terrible way? And maybe Maddie helps him cope with that. (Or maybe that’s too much. It detracts from the real part of the story, which is just him trying to get Maddie back?)
Is there some other reason for Mark to be so attached to Maddie? Maybe because he’s never been really successful at anything — he failed at baseball, even though injured, and his acting deal isn’t coming along. There might be a moment where Mark realizes that he had better be a success for his own daughter. Too many other people mess this job up. Let’s get back to the spiritual journey.
Every day I would add to this journal, deepening my understanding of the material. This is a powerful technique even NOPS will love.
If you are a pure OP, if you desire to know just about everything that is going to happen in your novel before you begin writing, here’s a simple plan to help you get there. I call it the Borg outline.
The Borg, as Star Trek fans know, is a cybernetic life form that assimilates all life forms it can in order to create a collective, advanced consciousness. If you are a super OP and you want that kind of all-encompassing system, this will work for you.
You go from the general to the specific, and then you tweak the specifics until you’re ready to write.
Here are the steps for you to follow:
[1] Define the LOCK elements. As discussed in chapter one, a solid plot needs at least four things:
So spend a good deal of time defining your LOCK elements. It can be as simple as this: Sam Jones is a cop who wants to find out who really murdered the mayor. He is opposed by the killer, who turns out to be the mayor’s wife. In the end he is triumphant, but I want the feeling to be bittersweet.
That’s very general, as it should be. If you’re going to construct a complete outline you don’t want to commit yourself too quickly at any point in the proceedings. Stay fairly loose to give your imagination some breathing room.
[2] Write your back cover copy. As mentioned elsewhere, begin by getting your summary statement into shape. See Appendix B for a worksheet for this part of your outline. This will be your overall story guide as you continue to put together the outline.
[3] Create the overall structure. Using the principles in chapter two, begin to get a sense of your overall structure. Think in terms of three acts. For example:
Act I: Sam gets the case.
Act II: Sam struggles to solve the case.
Act III: Sam solves the case.
Next, think about the two doorways of no return. Ask yourself why Sam must solve the case. What incident is going to force Sam to take the case? It might be as simple as being assigned the case. That means he has a duty that he must obey. That would be the first doorway.
Then Sam comes across a major clue or suffers a possible setback, which becomes the second doorway. This may be a vague scene at first, but write it down in general terms either on an index card or however else you like to keep track of your scenes.
Come up with a possible ending scene and add that to your list.
[4] Do some character work. If you like to do extensive character biographies, now would be the time to work on those. You should at least know the minimum information as laid out in chapter four and the character arc as discussed in chapter nine. Take a few days just to work on characters. Make them colorful and unique because this will suggest possible scenes.
I find it handy to distill all my character work into a one- or two-page grid with the following information:
| Character Grid | |||||
| Name | Description | Role | Objective & Motive | Secret | Emotion Evoked |
[5] Create act summaries. You have three acts already laid out. Give a summary of each act. What is going to be accomplished in each? We are getting more specific now. For example:
ACT 1
Sam Jones is a New York cop. He has been on the job nearly twenty years, the last five as a detective. He has a wife and daughter, but things are not so good at home. His wife has been hitting the bottle pretty hard for the last few years but won’t go to seek treatment. His daughter is thirteen and rebellious. Sam is from a family of four boys and is clueless about how to raise or relate to a daughter. This is affecting his work. He has not been as sharp on the job lately, and he has heard about it from on high.
When the mayor of New York City is murdered in a particularly grisly fashion, Sam gets the case. This is the doorway of no return because this is Sam’s duty.
ACT 2
Sam and his partner, Art Lopez, begin at the crime scene and encounter a sloppy ME who seems new. A series of witness interviews follows, each one adding perplexity to the case.
Meanwhile, his daughter has started smoking and staying out at night. Sam’s wife is beside herself and seems to be cracking up. Sam has no idea what to do about either one of them.
A clue points to the mayor’s office as the source of a possible hit on the mayor. How could that be? As Sam and Art close in on some answers, trouble comes their way in the form of an assassination attempt. The two of them figure out that there is something very big going on behind the scenes. A conspiracy? This clue is the second doorway. Sam is going to be forced to confront a much bigger problem than he thought.
ACT 3
Sam begins to focus on the mayor’s chief of staff. He follows him around, but is not satisfied with what he sees.
He gets a call from the hospital informing him that his wife has overdosed on sleeping pills and nearly died.
Torn between his personal and professional obligations, Sam almost gives up his job. But then he discovers that the chief of staff is having an affair with the mayor’s window. The clues fall into place.
Sam confronts the two of them and is almost killed by their hit men accomplices. But he survives.
Sam quits the force to dedicate himself to his family.
[6] Create chapter summary lines. For each act, start creating one-line summaries of possible chapters. Again, you can put these on index cards or simply list them. You will be manipulating them a lot, so be flexible. Some of your chapter lines for act one might go like this:
Prologue: The mayor is murdered.
Chapter 1: Sam questions a witness in an unrelated homicide. The witness freaks out.
Chapter 2: Sam is dressed down by his captain for being overzealous.
Chapter 3: Sam gets drunk and complains to his partner. Doesn’t want to go home.
Chapter 4: At home, Sam yells at his wife and daughter. His wife drinks.
Chapter 5: A newspaper reporter corners Sam about the witness incident. Sam is assigned the case with a partner, Art Lopez.
Chapter 6: The killer’s point of view: watching the news on TV.
And so on. This part of your outlining can take a long time, and it should. Give yourself a realistic deadline and strive to meet it.
Lay out your plot on index cards or in some other form so you can get the big picture. Give yourself some time away and then come back to your plot once more for fine-tuning. Maybe you’re going to want to add or subtract scenes. In fact, you should.
[7] Do full chapter summaries. Expand your chapter lines into short summaries of the scenes you are going to write. Put down the locations, times, and characters involved. See chapter seven on scene writing.
Strive to keep these summaries to less than 250 words. For example:
Chapter 1
We meet Sam Jones as he is in the middle of questioning a Korean store owner who witnessed a shooting outside his store. The perpetrator was black and the victim apparently white, though the storeowner is unclear about who was who. This neighborhood has been the scene of racial tensions, and Sam feels the need to get a quick solution. Sam is also a little on edge, thinking about his wife and daughter at home. Things have not been going well there lately, and it is affecting his work. Sam is resentful about that. But he keeps his attention on the store owner, a middle-aged man who is full of fear. Sam knows that this witness is withholding information because he is afraid of retaliation. Despite Sam’s assurances that he will be safe, the storeowner resists. Sam has had it and starts yelling at the store owner that he better be worried about what Sam will do if he doesn’t cooperate. The store owner freaks out and starts screaming. He runs out of his store where he is nicked by a kid on a bike. This freaks him out even more and he starts threatening, “Lawsuit! Lawsuit!” Sam rolls his eyes. Another wonderful night as a New York cop.
[8] Take a breather. You deserve it.
[9] Write your novel. Follow the chapter summaries, step by step, as you write your book. If you come to a place where you’re absolutely compelled to deviate from your outline, pause and think about it, and if need be, change the outline from that point forward. Yes, it involves work and new chapter summaries. But you are an OP, and you love this.
[10] Revise your novel. See the next chapter.
Answer the following questions quickly, recording your first response:
[A] When you go to a party, you most look forward to:
1. Seeing old friends
2. Meeting new people
[B] If you had to choose which music to listen to, you would choose:
1. Classical
2. Rock
[C] What subject were you better at in school:
1. Math
2. Art
[D] How would your closest friend place you between:
1. Control freak
2. Wild child
[E] Whom would you rather spend an hour with:
1. William F. Buckley
2. Jack Black
[F] You most like:
1. Security
2. Surprises
[G] You would be happier as a:
1. Software developer
2. Poet
All right, this was a little unscientific. But honestly, if you have mostly ones, you probably fall on the OP side of the continuum. If you have mostly twos, you might very well be a NOP. Choose a system that fits your “profile” and give it a try.
Make a list of your favorite novels. Put down at least ten titles. Now look at the list. Is there a similarity to them? Are they heavy on plot and action, or do you prefer more character-driven books? Or is there a mix?
There are more NOPs on the literary/character-driven side, and more Ops on the commercial/plot-driven side. Take this into account in choosing a system. You should be writing the type of novel you most like to read.