For the last stream’s exercise, we did something we haven’t done since Rubbish to Published: talk about how to outline a story.
Creating an outline can be a very helpful guide, like having a map for a roadtrip. And they don’t have to be intimidating to create either.
All we did to create our story’s outline was answer five simple questions. Chat voted for how we answered them along the way, and I think we ended up outlining a cool story.
Here’s what we came up with: (along with examples in italics)
You can watch it here or scroll down for the writeup.
1) Who is your main character? What makes him/her unique? What does he/she want to do? What is the conflict?
(Harry Potter: An eleven year old orphan boy finds out he is a wizard.)
(Romeo and Juliet: Two teenagers from rival families fall in love.)
Claudette, a young girl that has acquired magical mutations due to the environment she lives in. She wants to get out of the crapsack of a city that she lives in in order to escape her abusive parents and hopefully the city.
2) What happens at the END of your story? What do you want to SAY with your story?
(Harry Potter: “Love is the greatest magic” – Harry defeats an evil wizard with the power of love.)
(R&J: “The dangers of prejudice and not allowing young love to be explored” – The teenagers kill themselves because their feuding families won’t allow them to be together.)
Claudette finds out that without the environment, she has no magical mutations and realizes she needs to move back in order to mean something. (Theme: “Our significance/purpose comes through turmoil.”)
3) What is the first good/bad thing that happens to your main character?
(Harry Potter: Harry is taken to a wizarding school where he makes friends and learns about magic.)
(R&J: The teenagers find out they will not be allowed to be together.)
After finally snapping, Claudette lashes out, accidentally using her magical powers to kill/incapacitate her parents. She causes a huge scene in doing so (maybe it happens in a crowded marketplace?) and has to flee to escape from the suppressive police and having her powers discovered.
4) What is the next bad/good thing that happens to your character? (If #3 was a good thing, then do a bad thing this time; if it was a bad thing, then do a good thing.)
(Harry Potter: Harry finds out his parents were killed by an evil wizard but somehow he survived.)
(R&J: The teenagers get married in secret without their families knowing.)
She meets somebody else with powers and they help her escape. That person introduces her to a band of others with powers. Together they overthrow the oppressive people in charge of the city.
5) How is it resolved? How will you connect #4 to your ending? How will your character(s) grow/change?
(Harry Potter: Harry confronts the evil wizard and the shield of love that his mother gave him by sacrificing her life allows him to win.)
(R&J: The teenagers’ families find out, and the teenagers kill themselves rather than be separated.)
Having overthrown the oppressors, Claudette and the mutants leave the city to finally live in peace. But when they get too far away, they discover that they lose their powers.
Sure, we don’t know the details of the story yet. We don’t know what he powers are, who her friends are, or who the suppressors in charge of the city are, but that doesn’t matter at this point. With this outline, we have a map of the entire story, and we can figure out the details as we go along.
Having an outline like this still leaves plenty of room for creativity and freedom, while also providing a guiding light to keep you focused and to prevent writer’s block. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to read Claudette’s story for sure!
After that we did a writing prompt and chat voted for this one submitted by Memb_Insane_rane: An explorer has returned with the Eye of Randofakt, a glowing orb that gives total knowledge of a completely random subject to whomever touches it.
This was a great prompt. There were so many different ways for us to take it! Plus we wanted to make sure that the random subject the protagonist received had some story relevance, so narrowing it down was tough.
I really like where our story ended up. It’s not as polished as it could be, but it’s a fun read for sure.
Or you can watch a quick video of us writing/reading it here.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch Rubbish to Published, the writing exercises, or the writing prompts on YouTube, or watch the full stream reruns until Twitch deletes them.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming November 2018.
Featured image: GAHAG