Things You'll Need:
- Your Plot notebooks
- Your worldbuilding notebooks
- Your maps
- Another notebook or your wordprocessor or computer
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Step 1
Now comes the most difficult part, so far, of writing your novel. The outline. But a couple things first...
Point of View
There are several points of view. You can go first person, which means one person telling the story. The entire story is from their eyes and spoken as “I went here and I did this and I believe this.” You can go third person, which allows more than one person to tell the story. “Sam went here, Same did this, Sam believed this.” This also gives you the chance to have more than just Sam’s outlook on things. You can have him tell one scene and the bad guy tell the next and his girl friend tell the next, and so on.
Personally, I like what is called ‘close personal third’. I can have more than one person tell the story, but I am so close to who ever the point of view character is, that I can get into their heads and tell the reader what they are thinking.
Examples...
First person...I couldn’t believe my eyes. Jessi just stood there, holding the baby. The poor thing was screeching at the tops of its lungs. I had to figure out how to get him something to eat.
Third person...Sam looked at Jessi. She just stood there, as if she didn’t hear the baby screeching. He knew he had to do something, but was at a loss as to what.
Close personal third...Sam stared at Jessi. “Can’t she see the baby is hungry? Why doesn’t she cuddle the poor little guy?” Sam shook his head, he needed to do something, but what?
*In case you can’t see it, the parentheses indicate Sams thoughts.
If you do choose third person, it depends on the size of the story, on how many point of views you have. With a 60K word novel, about the size of a small Young Adult, you want no more than three. If you go twice that many words; 120K will ask for five or maybe even six point of views. -
Step 2
Rhythm and story arch
Your story is going to need rhythm. It has to keep a pace that is going to keep the reader rushing forward to find out what happens next, but won’t wear them out because of to much action. You have also got to follow the story arch.
Your story has several parts. I am going to plot this as a 60K (K means thousand) word novel, for ease with numbers.
1. The opening...This is going to be the first 20K words. It has two parts.
2. The middles...This is also going to be 20K and it has two parts as well.
3. The ending...This is going to be, you guess it, 20K and has three parts.
The opening 1-10K is going to be the introduction. You want all your main and secondary characters introduced in this first 10K. You also want to make sure you have a solid grasp of your setting and the main problem of your story, the reason the story is being told. 10K to 20K is going to be used to build that climax. You are going to push, shove and cram your characters into all the problems they are going to have to get themselves out of. You will introduce the last of the subplots and the last of the major settings here as well.
The middles 20K to 30K is going to be used to get all of your characters where they need to be in order for them to play out the climax. If you have a major plot twist, this had better be where you at least start hinting at it. 30K to 40K is the final push up the arch and when you hit about 40K your characters had better be in a world of hurt. Their entire lives are going to depend on what they do next. This is the start of the major climax of your story.
The ending has three parts. 40K to 45K is the climax. This is where the earthquake happens, the barn burns, the monsters invade and the moon falls from the sky. 45K to 55K is the where the characters save the day by evacuating the cities, getting the horses out of the barn, cough on the monsters to make them all die, and shoot a rocket into space to keep the moon in orbit. 55K to 60K is where they all figure out what happened and learn to go on about their lives. This is your happy ending.
These numbers are not set in concrete. I use them as a guideline so I know where I need to be when I hit a certain word count. I know that when I hit 40K I should be well on my way to the climax. this also tells me I am not writing enough if I am heading for that climax at 35K.
You want to start the rhythm of your story with a BANG. Then play along there in an increasing cresc -
Step 3
When you read a book you read it in chapters. When you write your book, you write it in scenes. Each scene must have six parts.
1. Point of View
2. Location
3. Characters
4. A problem
5. Something that makes the problem worse.
6. A solution to this problem.
Point of View...Jessi
Location...At home, ten miles out of town. In the living room.
Characters...Jessi my main character.
The problem...Jessi has decided she is going to have to paint the living room. She has no paint.
Something that makes the problem worse...Her brother had the car, thus she cannot run into town to pick up the paint.
A solution to the problem...Her brother, Sam, calls and she has him pick up the paint before he comes home from work.
This is decidedly simple, but you can see the six parts laid out. Let’s try for something a bit trickier.
Point of View...Sam
Location...Near Lake Ghani at the camp site they set up for that night.
Characters...Sam, Jessi and the baby they kidnapped to keep from being killed by the bad guy.
The problem...They have no food, the baby is hungry and they have no clue as to what to do.
Something that makes the problem worse...It begin to rain.
The solution to the problem...They find a cave on the bank of the river to get in out of the rain. A small deer is using the cave as well. They kill it to get food.
See, now the scene has been outlined. If each scene is written to follow these rules, then each one should lead into the next scene. -
Step 4
The outline
I have a story and I want to write it at about a 60K novel. Of course when I say 60K this is just the low end. I don’t want less then this.
I know I tend to write scenes smaller than average because I am a character writer not a description writer. Thus, I aim for each scene of my novel to be around 1K words. So, if I want to write a 60K word novel I need, in the neighborhood, 60 scenes. I usually aim for about 55 scenes because I know that my dialogue can cause a scene to run as high as 3K words and my description scenes can be as few as 300 words.
So with this novel about Sam and Jessi, I need about 55 scenes. I have my plot notebook handy and I begin to look through it to find the best scene to start with. I then create my outline.
1. POV Sam
Location, Haniver City market square.
Sam asks his sister Jessi to watch their produce stand so that he can go watch the glider races. His friend Dhahi gets him to bet on the blue glider and he looses. He has no money to pay off the bet. So he tries to make a run for it.
Problem..Sam is bored watching the produce stand.
Worse...Sam bets on a glider and looses.
Solution...Sam runs away.
2. POV Sam
Location, Slave quarters Haniver City
Sam is hiding behind the cages that house the slaves brought to the city to be sold. He over hears a young woman begging a slaver not to kill her infant son. The woman begs him to take the child. He does and sneaks away with the infant.
Problem...Sam is being pursued by the guy who he owes money too.
Worse...Sam takes on the responsibility of an infant child.
Solution...He can get past the guy looking for him because he now has a baby and the guy isn’t looking for a man with a child.
I go on from here for all 55 scenes. Once this is done, I hide the outline for several weeks, and I do not look at it. Not even a glance. After a few weeks I pull it out and read over it, correcting things and making notes. Once I am happy with it, I start writing.
Comments
hopewilbanks said
on 9/16/2009 When you write your novel by scenes, how then do you break those up into chapters once you're finished?
amaana03 said
on 3/19/2009 Thanks for all this great information! I just have one comment to make about usage:Can you please correct the usage of the word "too" in the example of the second scene. The sentence reads: "Problem...Sam is being pursued by the guy who he owes money too." Thanks again!
btruelove said
on 10/25/2008 Hi, thanks for this. It's been really helpful to give me structure to think out my story they way you describe the 6 parts to a scene. Do you have any similar suggestions for thinking about chapters?
TexasTraci said
on 12/11/2007 You are absolutely right! There is no ONE way to write a novel, but it sure helps to dig around and find out how others do it. Thanks for putting yourself out there! And thanks to your husband for his work as well.