One of the best ways to smash through writer’s block and get a story finished is with an outline checklist.
Let’s make one together and see what it can look like!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we go over “how to write a scheduled outline checklist.”
You can watch the full video here to or scroll down for notes/highlights.
Creating a Checklist Outline
- A good way to overcome writer’s block is a checklist outline
- What sets it apart from other outlines is that it’s blocked off like a schedule, where you complete certain parts of the story in a certain period of time
- Ideally you set a word goal for a day, and then box off the time for however long you want to spend writing that day (2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, etc.)
When you do it as an outline, you can even put in what parts of the story you want to accomplish in each section, like this:
Goal: 1,000 word short story (4 hours)
1st hour (250 words)
- Introduce Bob and Beatrice as middle school friends who are out trick or treating one Halloween night
- Don’t forget! Describe their costumes, make Bob scared, Beatrice sassy, make the haunted house look/feel creepy
2nd hour (250 words)
- Write Bob and Beatrice go into the haunted house and meet the ghosts and find out about the hidden treasure
- Don’t forget! Describe the ghosts, make them look scary but they have cute/funny personalities, there should be a time limit to find the treasure, maybe midnight
3rd hour (250 words)
- Write Bob and Beatrice going around looking for the treasure, but they don’t know where to go, so they just end up disappointedly trick or treating at one house before returning to the haunted house empty handed
- Don’t forget! They should have some sort of clue guiding them, maybe something given to them by one of the ghosts that will make sense in the final scene
4th hour (250 words)
- Write the clock striking midnight and the search being over, but then the ghosts see the candy that Bob/Beatrice have, and they say that’s the treasure they’ve been looking for, Bob/Beatrice tell them they can just buy it at the store, ghosts decide to move to the local Target instead
- Don’t forget! Have the “clue” that the ghosts gave them be part of a candy wrapper or something, maybe consider having the ghosts be spirits of children who died on Halloween in the past?
- And that’s it! The goal of the checklist outline isn’t to create a perfect story, it’s to get one FINISHED in a RELAXED way
- Don’t worry about putting more than 250 words/hour, unless you’ve already finished some stories and know you can do more
- Don’t worry about writing too much/too little, just stick to your word/time limit, whichever comes first
- Don’t worry about making your first draft good, just get it on the page, once it’s finished then you can go back and edit it
When creating your outline, you can also put in…
- Break times (and what you want to do during them)
- Specific time periods (like 2:00-2:30 or 4:15-5:15)
- Notes that you don’t know how they’re going to come into play but you don’t want to forget (leaves wiggle room for the details)
Why Do This?
- Creating these outlines can be extremely helpful, since it’s a laid-out map for how you can finish a story
- The benefits of actually finishing a story from beginning to end, even if it’s just 1,000 words, cannot be overstated
- The confidence/skills you gain from completing short stories is immense, so start small!
After that, chat voted that we create another outline based n this story idea: a leper colony survives a plague.
Here’s what we came up with:
Goal: 1,000 word short story (4 hours)
1st hour (250 words)
- Show the world after plague has wiped out most of humanity, main character is a survivor, word gets around about a leper colony that is thriving
- Don’t forget! MC’s significant other is gone, they believe that they’re dead, MC is a doctor
2nd hour (250 words)
- Survivors plan to attack the colony because they think the lepers unleashed their disease on the world, MC goes to warn them before the attack
- Don’t forget! Knows the lepers didn’t do it because he’s a doctor that’s not how diseases work, wants to preserve what’s left of humanity
3rd hour (250 words)
- When MC arrives at the colony, finds a long-lost significant other there, tries to inform them of the attack but they are scared of him and quarantine him away
- Don’t forget! The lepers should be cured thanks to the disease that has killed everyone else, MC should be distracting them in some way (maybe some of the leper kids come to him for protection instead of running away?)
4th hour (250 words)
- The attack happens, and MC can only watch as the cured lepers are killed by the survivors, ensuring humanity’s destruction, at the end a survivor comes up to him and thanks him for helping with their attack by distracting the lepers
- Don’t forget! Ending on a depressing note, the power of humanity’s hatred.
Be sure to check out the video to see the 2-hour and 6-hour version we came up with for it too!
After that, chat voted that we write a story that began with this randomly chosen sentence from Fifty Shades of Grey: So you’ve just slept with him, given him your virginity, a man who doesn’t love you.
Here’s what we came up with:
“So you’ve just slept with him, given him your virginity, a man who doesn’t love you.”
Bethany sat across from me at the cafeteria table, eyes red and cheeks streaming with tears. She’d been like this ever since she sat down, curled up her hands in her lap, and told me what had happened between her and Brad last night. And how he had dumped her this morning after first period.
Frankly, I’d already had enough.
“Listen,” I grumbled. “What did you have for breakfast today?”
Bethany snivelled and narrowed her eyes at me. “What does that have to do with anything?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Just tell me.”
She shook her head and shrugged, looking eager to get back on track to complain-ville. “I dunno. Cereal?”
“What kind of cereal?”
“I don’t remember!” she said, throwing her hands up. “Cap’n Crunch?”
“And when was the first time you had Cap’n Crunch?”
“This is ridiculous. I’m trying to vent to you and—”
“You first had it when you were little right?” I asked. She stopped, glared, and nodded. “Your first bowl of Cap’n Crunch. Your first bowl of Cocoa Puffs. Your first plate of spaghetti and boiled spinach and your first slice of pizza.”
“What are you talking about?” Bethany whined, sounding on the verge of tears again.
I leaned closer to her. “All of those were your firsts. Everything has a first at some point in your life. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it sucks. But would you say you lost anything by having your first bowl of cereal or plate of spaghetti?”
Bethany sniffed and stared at me, wiping her eyes.
“No, I guess not,” she said.
“Exactly. All of those things were experiences. They added to your life. They didn’t take anything away. You didn’t lose anything last night, but did gain something. And, just like your first bowl of Cap’n Crunch, you’re not going to remember it when you’re eating your 500th bowl years from now.”
For a moment, Bethany’s lips curled into a smile. I breathed a sigh of relief that maybe we could get on with our lunch, but then her eyes sharpened on me even more fierce than before.
“Wait a minute!” she shrieked. “500th time? Are you calling me a slut?”
This time, I didn’t hold back from rolling my eyes.
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 join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso