Tips/Advice on fleshing out a story/outline?

HaHs · Sep 16, 2017

Hey folks.

I had an outline for my WIP but as I was writing it found my characters wanted to do different things that would deviate from the outline (which I also came to realise wasn't the best outline in the world) and I kept feeling unmotivated to write what felt like 'filler scenes'. I knew the big events I wanted to happen and the scenes that mattered most to me so I decided to let myself write those things first and then when that was finished look at the overall picture of what I'd written and work on filling in those spaces. I'm aware that this isn't the most efficient method of writing but it's what I wanted to do and I don't regret it, though now I'm faced with the task of doing the filling-in and looking for some advice on the matter. I know that something I need to focus on is subplots - I had a main plot moving the story along but not much else surrounding it and definitely need to add more in to keep things going. But I'm just looking for general advice really - any exercises you might yourself use that have worked for you and such like.

Thanks!
HaHs

Bufty · Sep 16, 2017

Listen to your characters.

'Filling in' may not be the answer if what you are 'filling in' doesn't blend into the main plot and existing characters.

Maybe listening to the characters en route will take you to a better place than rigidly adhering to your outline (which you seem to acknowledge has flaws) and then 'filling in'.

Good luck.

relletyrots · Sep 16, 2017

I don't feel like I can give you any advice, besides saying what I do.

I personally hate the filler method. That is, writing the main scenes first, then filling the blanks between. I see a few problems with that:
- It causes the story to evolve in an unnatural way, since everything you write has to fit future scenes perfectly. Realistically, the future should fit the past, not vice versa.
- It limits the writer, and blocks change and creativity. You wrote an outline, and like you said, it might not be the best. How would you ever know, if you strictly use its mold?
- For me, it makes the writing process less exciting, because of it being less dynamic.

What I do is write the story sequentially. I do have an outline for the main plot, (mostly in my mind, some on paper,) and I make sure to hit all of the relevant plot-points. The outline process for individual chapters/scenes varies. However, as characters grow and subplots emerge, the story changes. It's nothing to worry about. It's natural, and more importantly, it makes the story more natural.

But that's just me. Every writer is different, and I can see how someone may want to use that filler technique, for several reasons I won't mention here. Just make sure to do what's right for you.

If you want advice on how to create subplots, I usually try to answer several questions: What would each of my characters do at this point? How would they interact? How can I use that to move the story forward, both internally and externally? What new element of the world/story/characters can I introduce, that wasn't introduced before and would create further intrigue?

And sometimes, I just write, and see where that leads me.

Good luck!

cbenoi1 · Sep 16, 2017

HaHs said:
But I'm just looking for general advice really - any exercises you might yourself use that have worked for you and such like.

Write the story in 'telly mode' (a la Cliffsnotes). Don't bother editing the prose. Just get the story out. When you get stuck to a transition between scenes, just write the gist of it and highlight it. ex: Gilbert experiences something that makes him accept he's a drunkard. This is because your inspiration is not there yet. List those places that need revision and ask yourself for each case "what is the most dramatic way to show this scene". Make a list of potential candidates. Ex: Gilbert's friend dies from liver cancer. Gilbert meets his long lost son. Gilbert watches a man rob a liquor store. etc. When all the fillers are filled and the resulting story looks promising, put away the notes and write the actual book (pantser) / revise the outline (outliner).

-cb

BethS · Sep 16, 2017

I can't improve on what Bufty said. Whether planned in advance or written on the fly, every scene should grow organically out of what happened before it. Each new scene should expand, complicate, or twist the conflicts (story problems) so there's no such thing as a boring "filler" scene.

It's entirely possible to write a story out of order--I know some writers who do--but at the same time, any gaps left by doing that still need to mean something. They should connect, deepen, and illuminate what's already been written and offer a bridge to what's yet to come.

indianroads · Sep 16, 2017

A lot of events have to fall like dominoes, as in this happens, which makes MC do that, another person sees what MC did does something else... a chain of action and reaction until there's some resolution. A tangle of these make up a story.

I like to think of an outline as planning a journey. I want to go to Disneyland. Ok. Good. First thing to know is where I'm starting from - if I don't know that, everything else is impossible. To get from Colorado to Disneyland I have to consider the highways I want to take and the cities I'll pass through. Each a step along the way - a domino tumbles.

Start a coarse granularity and work to finer grit.

Early on - and in MANY ways more important than your story is the characters. Some you may not find in our outline, but may pick up like hitchhikers when you actually start writing. Events themselves are important, but characters make the reader care about how the story turns out.

MythMonger · Sep 17, 2017

You could put roadblocks in between the scenes you've already written.

Let's say you have the sequence written as 1 - 2 - 3. If you put a roadblock between scenes 1 and 2, you'll then need a new sequence of actions (a - b - c) to get everything back on track. So after that happens, it'll look like 1 - a - b - c - 2 - 3.

Not only will this flesh your story and characters out, your story line won't look so sequential and predictable.

Characters also have lives outside the boundaries of the story you're presenting, only intersecting for a while on your pages. Not everything in those lives will be relevant to your story, but something might enter from that external life and interfere with the story line.

Note that I'm only discussing things that interrupt your planned story. Adversity is good for fiction.

Layla Nahar · Sep 17, 2017

Why not write your opening scene, and see what that tells you about the story and characters?

HaHs · Sep 18, 2017

Thank you all for your input! Reading through all of these and doing some thinking over the last day has been really helpful. I think what I’m going to do next is going to be less “think of something to go in-between scene A and scene B” and more “think of where you left your character in scene A, where you want them to be for scene B and what experience they need to have to get them there”. I’m totally fine with changes - if what happens after scene A means that scene B becomes different to what I’ve already written that’s fine by me! In fact thinking of it this way has made me realise that I’m going to look at what I’ve done and do some light re-planning around it and then just start an entire new draft with a more thoughtful approach to the characters and their journeys. I definitely need to do still need to take time to do some ‘fleshing out’ of the plot as a whole (the story currently runs with a main plot and a couple of very small subplots mentioned here and there but never really expanded upon), but this isn’t going to be me sat down thinking “WHAT SUB PLOTS CAN I SQUEEZE IN?” and more “what do my characters need to experience and how can I give them that?”.

One major thing that I realised in the last few chapters I wrote is that I really hadn’t put much thought into my protagonist’s character growth. Despite being hit by a lot of hurdles (including some pretty impactful deaths and violences that definitely would leave an impact on a young person!) she was the same completely stubborn, headstrong individual at the start as she was at the end. She didn’t really change. I was so focused on writing a strong female character that I kind of completely forgot to give her weaknesses too. It wasn’t until the last third of my “pre-draft”-draft that I realised what some of these weaknesses can be and how much it improved the story to give her these personal hurdles to tackle. Now I still fully believe that she can still be a bad-ass at the start of the novel but she must go through changes, so I’ve definitely got to dedicate some time to thinking about her character arc and such, which I suppose is going to come in very handy with all this thinking I’ve got to do about the plots.

This may all be obvious and these are definitely things I’ve known I should be doing but truthfully it’s not been something I have consciously thought about frequently during my writing of the current scenes. I’ve been very much following the “GET ANY AND ALL OF THE WORDS DOWN AND FIX THEM LATER” mindset which has pushed a more thoughtful approach to the story out of my mind. I guess everything I've written so far has just been an opportunity for me to get a better feel for the characters/their world/the planned plot in a way that I couldn’t until I actually put pen to paper and spent some time properly immersed in their world, rather than mind-mapping and Pinterest board-ing my outline into existence - so I don’t regret doing it, I think it’s worked rather well as a kind of extremely long-winded ‘writing exercise’ and what follows from this can be thought of properly as ‘the first official draft’ of the project. This also makes me feel a little less guilty about “wasting time”… it’s been a learning experience! Time well spent, right? ……. right??? Nervous sweating

Thank you all,
HaHs

Bufty · Sep 18, 2017

Each of us usually learns something from such threads as these. Great times lie ahead. Have fun. :Hug2:

Tips/Advice on fleshing out a story/outline?

HaHs

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

relletyrots

The One Who Tells The Story

cbenoi1

BethS

indianroads

Wherever I go, there I am.

MythMonger

Willing to Learn

Layla Nahar

Seashell Seller

HaHs

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?