By: David
I’m not a natural outliner, and must force myself to follow some semblance of order so as not to waste thousands of words on a draft destined to be rewritten from scratch. That happened on the first couple drafts of my novel, which, to be fair, weren’t so much drafts as verbose outlines.
After a couple years floundering, I’ve come up with a checklist I now use prior to creating or revising my work. As with any system, this is totally unique to my own foibles, and so it may or may not work for you. But it's worth a shot!
Step 1 – Read the previous draft (if it exists) along with prior feedback I’ve received from a writing group or other first readers. Almost always, my first response is that what I wrote was garbage, and I resolve to fix it.
Step 2 – Review the novel outline and revise big-picture stuff as needed. This is where I identify structural issues and significant consistency problems that might have crept into the story as I revised. It’s here where I decide which chapters need to be reworked, placed elsewhere, or eliminated altogether. I use the outline much like a compass – to make sure I’m headed in the right direction.
Step 3 – "Truby" the chapter. Which means deconstructing the chapter so I know what needs to get accomplished and how I get there. This step is the most important. I use John Truby’s methodology (from his book, The Anatomy of a Story), though, there are a host of systems that accomplish much the same in different ways. This just worked best for me. Oftentimes, this also helps diagnose why a chapter isn’t working (what I call the ‘autopsy’). Here’s the Truby checklist, along with context for each question:
Position on the character arc: Where does this scene fit within the hero’s development, and how does it further that development?
Problems: What problems must be solved in the scene, or what must be accomplished? From the author’s perspective, not the characters.
Strategy: A short paragraph summarizing the chapter and a listing of the major action beats for each scene. For me, this is crucial.
Desire: Which character’s desire will drive the scene? What does he or she want? This desire provides the spine of the scene. Oh man, this question keeps me on track.
Endpoint: How does that character’s desire resolve? By knowing your endpoint in advance, you can focus the entire scene toward that point.
Opponent: Figure out who opposes the desire and what the characters fight about.
Plan: The character with the desire comes up with a plan to reach the goal. There are two kinds of plans that a character can use within a scene: direct and indirect. To be honest, I usually build this into the Strategy, but the question makes sure I deal with it.
Conflict: Make the conflict build to a breaking point or a solution. This prompts me to up the conflict, which I oftentimes keep too subtle.
Twist or reveal: Occasionally, the characters or the audience (or both) are surprised by what happens in the scene. Not every chapter has a twist, but it’s a great prompt to get the reader to the next chapter.
Step 4 – Write. Yea! Finally. Even when I’m revising a chapter, I pretty much start from scratch to keep the flow of words natural – which is why I’m a slow writer.
Step 5 – Listen to it. Forget what I said about Step 3 being the most important - this is. Listening to the words I’ve written uncovers embarrassingly obvious things my internal editor didn’t catch – awkward phrasing, overused prose, overused body language, unnatural dialogue, etc. I think this technique helps me objectively listen to the story, so I can more easily pick out those sections which don’t work or sound amateurish. This step oftentimes takes me a while, especially when I didn’t do a great job in the previous step.
Step 6 – Read & Critique. Hooray! This means submitting the revised (or new) chapter to my writing group, the Inkwells. Yes, I know, some writers don’t like the idea of a writing group (talking about you Stephen King), but it helps me immeasurably. Not only for the advice, but for the motivation.
That’s it. My first blog post – ever. I bet it sounds like I’m an over the top outliner, but I assure you, the opposite is true.