📊 Constructing a Detailed Plot or Outline: Preptober & NaNoWriMo 2024

WEEK THREE, LES GOOOO

Here’s the most important thing about novel outlines: If you write one, it will change before your last draft is done — probably a lot. This is because, whether you think of yourself as a plotter, pantser, or neither, your book is going to evolve as you write it. And that’s a good thing. 

There are things you can’t know until you’ve drafted your novel — and you’ll learn even more when you revise. To quote George Saunders, “An artist works outside the realm of strict logic.” A book has to change and grow as you move through the process of creation.

Most of all, as you create your outline, don’t worry about things like whether your ideas are “good enough” to write about. This will get you stuck before you start. Award-winning author Nicholson Baker’s novel The Mezzanine is literally about a man going out to buy shoelaces on his office lunch break. If that plot can work, yours can too. 

You’re going to find out a lot more about your ideas as you write. So don’t judge them, or yourself, at this stage. Many working writers I know actually prefer to outline after they have a draft, and it will be just as useful — or even more so.

— From Reedsy’s “How to Outline a Novel in 9 Easy Steps”

Writing up an outline before you are actually writing a book can be really hard, but I promise it is really worth it. The key to writing a pre-draft outline is to think of it as just a basis to your story, not something you’re forced to stay to and worship forever. In fact, by the end of your first draft your outline will most likely be completely changed from what you wrote originally.

But that’s okay! As long as you have something to start with, you will be much more equipped and excited to complete your first draft.

So…how do you plot/outline?

In Reedsy’s “How to Plot a Novel Like a NYT Bestselling Author”, they break the main process into six sections:

1. Find the story’s core question

2. Establish the story premise

3. Identify your protagonist’s wants and needs

4. Explore your character’s morality

5. Layer in reveals and reversals

6. Finish your plan with a synopsis

7. Bonus level :D

So I will walk you through those six steps along with templates, worksheets, questionnaires, and other articles.

Step One: Find the Story’s Core Question

In life, you’re always asking questions. Be they big or small (what should I wear today? Should I accept this job opportunity? Should I go to this event? Should I go out with them?), they’re all around you.

What questions are your MC asking in their life? Why? And what questions do you want your reader to explore as they delve into your story? Why?

Step Two: Establish the Story Premise

What is your story about? What happens? Who does what? This is the classic “plotting stage” where you identify plot points, “what happens next”, etc.

Reedsy’s article says:

The story premise, also referred to as the story hook, is a sentence or two that covers what your book is about. Starting with your central question, you’ll want to unpack: 

• The time and place in which you’re going to set your story;

• Your main character(s), their background, and their goals;

• The kind of ever-growing obstacles they must face to achieve their goals.

Then, you summarize everything into a short blurb. For example, here’s the premise of Caroline’s novel Is This Tomorrow:

Ava Lark lives in a 1950s suburb that she's dying to be a part of, but they don't like her because she's divorced and she's Jewish. But when her son's best friend goes missing, suspicions turn to her. Will they find this boy? Is she to blame? And how will she be a part of that community?

Step Three: Identify Your Protagonist’s Wants and Needs

This is where last week’s stuff comes in handy!

Reedsy’s article says:

To further plot her novels, Caroline creates what she calls a "Wants and Needs Bible" that helps her sketch out character progression and arcs. This means identifying what the character thinks they want, the misconceptions they have about their desire, and what they actually need to be happy. 

To use an example, Caroline invites us to think about how this applies to Nick Carraway, the main character and narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby:

• The want: Nick is haunted from growing up poor and so he desires money. He wants to be part of Gatsby's high-status society because he believes that will make him happy.

• The misconception: Equating having money to being happy is the misconception that Nick needs to question and dispel. 

• Action: The only way to get to the truth is through action. Nick sets out to meet Gatsby, enters his world, and finds a wealthy girlfriend. He gets what he thought he wanted, but he’s still unhappy.

• The "we're all doomed" moment: This moment of disillusionment is what Caroline calls the "we're all doomed” or “all is lost” moment. Things go from bad to worse: his friend Gatsby is murdered and his girlfriend turns out to be so superficial that he can't stand being in the same room as her for another second. 

• The realization: This is when he realizes that, while this is the life he wanted, it’s not the life he needs. Which leads him to change…

• Starting fresh: Nick walks away from everything to seek something different. This brings his character’s arc to a close.

Mapping out these plot points will help you immensely as you build your story structure. Caroline notably points out that the end of your character’s journey should answer the central question of the story.

For Nick, his question is: "Does money make you happy?" By the end of The Great Gatsby, he has decided to move back to the Midwest, but we don’t know where he’ll go from there. All we can hope is that he'll look for deeper connections and more fulfilling pursuits going forwards.

Step Four: Explore Your Character’s Morality

Reedsy gives us examples of how to do this in two ways:

Give them a tough choice to make 

One way to explore your character’s morality is by giving them a difficult problem that has two terrible solutions.

A powerful example of this can be found in William Styron’s 1979 novel Sophie’s Choice. A Nazi gives Sophie the choice of either giving up one of her children to a gas chamber while the others get to live, or commit them all to death instead. No matter what Sophie chooses in the end, her decision will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Unthinkable choices like the previously mentioned example are important because they add more depth to characters. They also get readers thinking about what they would do if faced with a similar situation — you’ll be hooking your readers with self-reflection.

Examine their moral blind spot

Characters often have moral blind spots that drive them to pursue their goals based on false beliefs and misconceptions. Caroline suggests digging deeper by sketching out their past to understand the “why” behind their actions.

Take an alcoholic character, for instance. Ask yourself questions like:

• When did their alcoholism start?

• What triggered it? What's the deeper, underlying reason?

• What role does alcohol play for them now? What need does it fulfill?

The deeper reasons can reveal crucial insights about the character. Let's say this character was physically abused by their parents as a child. At 16, they stumbled upon their father's liquor stash, and drinking numbed their pain. Now, they falsely believe that the more they drink, the better they'll feel. They can't see that they're just trying to escape the lingering trauma. They just want relief.

Caroline emphasizes that the key is to put your character in a situation that forces them to confront their moral blind spot head-on, proving they need to change. 

Take our alcoholic character, for instance. Say he has an important custody hearing coming up. He's anxious, so he convinces himself a few drinks will calm his nerves. One leads to two, then six. By the time he shows up to get his kid, he's plastered, and no one will let him see his child, let alone grant him custody.

That's his rock bottom moment, the “we're all doomed” realization that he's lost everything that matters because of his addiction. But it also serves as a massive opportunity — it can make him think, “Maybe it's time I finally get sober. Maybe I should try AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). Maybe I can turn my life around.” That's where true, powerful character transformation happens.

One of my favourite “alcoholic characters” is Haymitch from The Hunger Games. He’s such a well-written character, and Collins writes him in a way that does not make his addiction his entire personality.

Step Five: Layer in Reveals and Reversals

I personally prefer to print out all kinds of outlining systems so I can really get a thorough plot, and I really think this is a good idea (from Reedsy):

While many writers embrace the evergreen structure of three-acts, Caroline is of a different school of thought: “When I hear three acts, my head explodes because I don't believe that novels are in three acts. I think a novel has a beginning and it just rises up to the end.” 

She takes a different approach. On top of writing down her character’s “Wants and Needs Bible,” she uses an exercise called “Reveals and Reversals” that helps her further develop the narrative by adding unexpected twists and raising the stakes.

“Reveals and reversals just means that you get new information一 a reversal of expectations 一 and things get worse and worse. The stakes rise, so the character has to act more.” 

It’s really important to follow the “ask a question, then ask another question, then answer one question, then ask another question, then answer one question” (AKA keep asking questions but leave some unanswered) rule of writing to keep your readers hooked and begging for more!

Step Six: Finish Your Plan with a Synopsis

I had never heard of this step before, but it makes a lot of sense and I wish I had implemented it before!

Reedsy says:

Creating a strong synopsis is the final and fundamental part of the novel plotting process. During this step, you must put all the key story details in one place.

Even if you’re dreading the idea of it, Caroline believes that creating a synopsis is necessary to guides your work. “As you're writing, circle one scene every week and that's all you're going to work on. That way, it breaks your novel up into bite-size pieces and it also gives you a feeling of accomplishment.”

Your synopsis can be as long as twenty pages, or even more, if you’d like. Then, once you’re done tweaking it, consider showing what you’ve written to other authors, editors, or book coaches in your network like Caroline does.

“When I'm done with my synopsis, I'll show it to a bunch of people and have them read it, and I make sure that every point is in there. I look to answer these questions:

• Are there moral choices?

• Are there reversals and reveals?

• Do I have wants versus needs?

• Do I have the answer to the story?”

Make sure the ending answers your central question 

Once she finally has her synopsis, Caroline starts writing her first chapters. “The final step before you really start digging into your novel is the first chapter. I always write my first chapter because everything in it has the seeds to the end. Your first chapter is the question, your last chapter is the answer to that question.” 

By the time Caroline finished the synopsis of Is This Tomorrow, she already knew the ending of her book. “Ava had a misconception. She didn't have to belong to that community. She needed to form her own community, which she did by making pies and opening a little shop where people gradually began coming to her. That was her ending.”

You might find the idea of writing a novel and already knowing how it’s going to end strange, but rest assured that it won’t spoil the experience of writing it. If anything, plotting will provide the safety guardrail you need to let your imagination and creativity run wild while staying organized and productive. For Caroline, it has been incredibly helpful, and she hopes it can help you as well. “You don't have to use it. You don't have to agree with it. [But] it saved my life, and I hope it will save yours.”

And My Favourite Part…

TEMPLATES! I cannot exist without templates in my life, and I really recommend surfing the net for plot systems. But here are some of my favourites to save you the trouble:

• How to Outline a Novel (Reedsy)

• 7 Types of Story Structure (my favourite link!)

• NaNoWriMo’s official week 3 prep

• What is your plotting style?

• Save the Cat (NaNo Style)

• Katytastic's 3 Act/ 9 Block/ 27 Chapter Outline (NaNo Style)

Your Quest:

Plot your book! And if you have any tips or resources you want to share, please comment them below! Also, feel free to reach out if you get stuck, I’d love to help you!