Save the Cat! Explained: The Middle

Now that we've addressed the beginning, we're diving into the middle of the Save the Cat! story structure.

Also, I want to mention that you can find loads of story examples of this structure here, should you want to look at others. I realize a lot of us might be tired of Spider-verse at this point--but I find it helpful to use the same story to compare and contrast different structures. If we keep using different stories (like what everyone else does), then we miss out on some insights and conclusions we can't draw otherwise. Plus, all this is going to lead to bigger points I'll be posting on my blog far down the road from now. (In any case, this is the last structure I'll be using this story example.)

I realize for some, using the same story may be more confusing, especially if you are new to structure. Please feel free to take what works for you and leave the rest. Structure itself can be confusing to anyone who is learning. Feel free to skip the examples or even my own thoughts and opinions, if that best suits you (heck, or even this whole series). It's all good.

And now . . .

Read More

Discovery Writing and Outline Writing—Kinda the Same Thing Actually

I've talked about before on here and you can find it talked about throughout the industry, that there are really two approaches to writing: discovery writing (sometimes (controversially) called pantsing) and outline writing (aka plotting). Discovery writing is where you go directly to the manuscript and start discovering the story as you go. Outlining is what it sounds like, you outline before writing the manuscript. Most people fit somewhere in the middle. Me? I'm more of an outliner.

These approaches can seem like total opposites. And you can read and research all about them online. In fact, on here I have an article on outlining and another on discovery writing.

But for the last several months, I've been thinking about how they are actually kind of the same thing.

That might sound contradictory to some people, but just hear me out.

Months ago, I did this post on what to do when you write yourself into a corner. When I shared this on Facebook, one of my Facebook friends said he never writes himself into a corner because he outlines. I mentioned that I outline a lot and still manage to write myself into corners. For me, this is because it's impossible for me to brainstorm a perfect outline. There are usually side effects, complexities, and complications I run into that I didn't foresee. Not everyone has that, but I do. I also think it depends on the kind of story you are writing and how interconnected it is--if you are dealing with undercurrents, mysteries, hard magic systems, for example, I think you are more likely to run into issues you didn't foresee. If you are writing something like a slice-of-life story or a romance, I think it's less likely. Not one type is "better" than another, they are just different.

But as I was thinking about it, and I realized that while that post was titled "What to Do When You Write Yourself Into a Corner," it could have just as easily been titled "What to Do When You Outline Yourself Into a Corner."

At the end of the day, whether you go straight to the manuscript or you outline, you are still figuring out the story. Yes, it's true that the different approaches can produce different kinds of stories, but whether you outline or write a first draft, they are approaches to the same thing: figuring out the story.

True discovery writers may make statements like this: "It's like the story is telling me what it is, and I just write it down."

But I'm a big outliner, and I still have moments like that. In fact, not too long ago when outlining, I had a whole sequence of scenes and a character arc seem to simply manifest themselves to me, and it all felt so perfect (as "perfect" as the process can be anyway). Other times when I'm working on an outline, I feel utterly stuck on what should happen next, or how to get from point A to point B--things that discovery writers run up against when writing the story. There are times, I think, where discovery writers have to sit back and think how to do X or what's going to happen next. Some would call it writer's block.

I have heard some discovery writers say that their first draft is their outline. You get the story down and then you shape it into the true narrative.

Then recently, when I was perusing Writing Excuses to get some writing insight and inspiration, I happened to run into Brandon Sanderson talking about this same idea. That discovering and plotting are actually kind of the same thing. In outlining you front-load a lot of the work and in discovering you back load it, because you usually need to do more revisions.

My opinion has been that my writing tips and editing services and others' writing tips are helpful to discovery writers and to plotters, my take being that for discovery writers, the more you understand writing, the more you can "discover." (Not to mention, if something is "broken," getting tips can help you revise and fix it.)

Discovery writing can feel a little mystical.

Outlining feels more intentional and planned.

But in each approach you are simply figuring out the story.

And in reality, at times the opposite will feel mystical and the other requires some planning.

As I have been brainstorming and outlining a new book, I have sometimes felt anxious or rushed because I haven't started writing anything for the actual manuscript yet, and therefore feel as if I haven't "really" started it--as if the preliminary work I'm doing isn't really work and doesn't count, because I haven't started the word count. But here is the thing, I'm front-loading a lot of the work (as most people, I am not one extreme or the other, so I will undoubtedly still "discover" some things when I actually start the writing process). So of course it's going to be longer before I actually put words to the story document. But that also means I will have to do less work during and after the story-writing.

For discovery writers it may be the opposite. You can start on the word count right away, but you may be doing a lot of work during and after the draft.

Neither way is wrong and both ways are right.

Personally, I do way better work when I largely front-load it. I think I would cry if someone told me I had to "discover" a novel. Uugh, it would be the worst (as you can see, I'm not a pantser). Discovery writers may feel the opposite--they may feel that outlining takes away their desire to write because in a sense, the story is already "written"--it's already figured out.

In either case, we all have the same goals: to write a solid story. And frankly, nearly all the writing resources should benefit both types. In fact, the other day I listened to a podcast about discovery writing, because I thought the techniques would help me "discover" my concepts and outline. For me, in that instance, I was right. It helped quite a bit actually.

So do you agree or disagree? Are pantsing and plotting sorta the same thing in some ways? Which works for you?

Read More

Dealing with Dumb Ideas--Placeholders, Building Blocks, and Portrayals

If you are a creative, you are going to come up with some dumb ideas. I mean REALLY dumb. This doesn't mean you are stupid or not talented, it's simply part of the creative process. Some are placeholders until you get something better. Some are building blocks that will lead you to something great.

But it's a completely normal part of the process.

Unless you have tried to write a professional quality book, you may not appreciate just how many freaking choices a writer has to make. I mean TONS.

A novel is in some ways simply an accumulation of all those little choices.

I once voiced to someone how difficult it was to keep everything about my book in my head.

This person didn't believe me. "Of course you can. It's your book! You wrote it!"

Writing a book and reading a book is vastly different. The reader only sees the published product. The writer has all these scraps of past, present, and future ideas, dots that aren't yet connected, motives that aren't yet known, conflicts they haven't figured out how to solve--with multiple options and "alternative universes" for how the story can go. For every decision on paper, there could have been a dozen other options brainstormed.

You see, there are so many components to a good story that it's almost always impossible to have every single aspect figured out and brainstormed all at once. There are too many things! And one component affects how another functions, so if you change this, you have to consider how it affects that. And on and on.

A completed, polished, published work may fit entirely in your head, but a work-in-progress that is constantly in some kind of motion can often feel like an intellectual, unconnected mess.

Dumb ideas will come--simply because there is so much to brainstorm and make decisions about and components that affect one another, that you can't magically fit everything together the first time (or sometimes in your head for that matter).

I used to think there was no such thing as dumb ideas. I didn't believe in using the term.

Until I was editing my own story.

Guys, I had some really dumb ideas. REALLY dumb.

But here's where I think we get confused.

That doesn't mean I am dumb.

Remember, dumb ideas are a completely natural part of the process.

Weeks ago in a blog post about being gifted, I referred to this article on Mozart, which touched on something that had been living in the back of my head: dumb ideas.

In it, it has this quote from Seth Godin:

"The problem is that you can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones … Someone asked me where I get all my good ideas, explaining that it takes him a month or two to come up with one and I seem to have more than that. I asked him how many bad ideas he has every month. He paused and said, 'none.' And there, you see, is the problem." – Seth Godin

As writers, when we sit down to brainstorm, the first things that come to mind will almost always be the most cliche. Why? Because we've seen them so many times! Of course they will be the first things that comes to mind! "Hmmm . . . what kind of tree should this be? Oh, an oak."--like all the other hundreds of trees in fiction are.

Some other lesser ideas happen because they connect dots and problems easily. They fix or add conflict in simplistic ways.  "Hmmm . . . I have this character that died before the story started. What did she die from? I know! A car crash!"--like all the other hundreds of other characters that are dead by the time the story starts.

The simplistic and cliche aren't always wrong. There are definitely times where you should use them. And sometimes they are even the best idea to use.

Some dumb ideas aren't either of these kinds, but simply concepts you didn't think through. BECAUSE REMEMBER HOW MANY THINGS YOU HAVE TO BRAINSTORM?

You may be focused on brainstorming a main component and come up with a dumb idea for a side effect issue that popped up unexpectedly.

I once met a Shakespeare scholar who stood and told us how amazing Shakespeare was because he wrote so fast that he didn't have time to think up character names in his early drafts. He told us this like it was something stunning.

Having worked in this industry for several years, let me tell you, Shakespeare was completely normal.

I mean, he was a genius.

But that part of his creative process was completely normal.

Because you don't brainstorm everything perfectly at once. Lots of writers stick in "placeholders" so they can get on with the story and figure out that stuff later. Just a few weeks ago, someone in the industry posted some dialogue where they had marked the speaker as like "dwarf guy #1" because they hadn't yet come up with a name.

In early drafts, I use some kind of placeholders all the time. Sometimes things that are even less than placeholders, like, "[insert a line a of setting description]"--because I haven't yet brainstormed the details of that setting or the contents of that line, and right now I'm focused on the plot.

Sometimes I use dumb ideas because I can't think of something better at the time that satisfies my needs. But because a WIP book is like a constant moving target, I have been shocked more than once how an idea that appears later in the story crops up and I can go back and replace my other crap with something brilliant.

Some of the dumb ideas that I worry so much about end up solving themselves through the process of writing a book, and I realize they were really placeholders until I found something better.

Other times, it's not so easy.

For one, you have to come up with some good ideas before putting pen to paper. If you write a whole book with largely dumb ideas, then it's going to be a beast to rewrite and edit. It's almost like you are starting over from scratch anyway and have all the same problems. You have to come up with some good stuff to get a solid draft started.

Sometimes in situations where dumb ideas aren't placeholders until something better comes along, they may be more like building blocks.

You might brainstorm them all out first, so you have to work your brain into coming up with something better and they don't keep swimming around in your head. But sometimes the dumb idea can be the seed that grows into something better. Maybe for some reason your protagonist is not turning to the police no matter how ridiculous, dangerous, or serious her conflicts have become. You might look at it and realize that this is stupid. Any coherent person would go to the police at this point. You either need to rewrite the story so that she does go to the police. Or brainstorm a believable reason she does not. Perhaps in the process of brainstorming the latter, you uncover a treasure chest of powerful motive, characterization, and worldbuilding that will take care of this problem and actually make the story better.

Thus, having that dumb idea actually ended up being a building block to something better.

One of the things that I think most of us writers pray for is that all our dumb ideas are taken care of by the time the book is published.

In some technical or complicated scenes, you may have a dumb idea that has emerged out of the darkness from the sidelines that you had not foreseen. Like anyone, I want to believe that we can always get rid of them, but in some situations, especially in later drafts, that might be rather difficult to do, as it might change a bunch of other things that connect in, in the process. It might not always be realistic to get rid of all of them.

Thankfully, motives and portrayal can go a long way to fix some problems. Some writers say you can get a character to do almost anything if you show the right motive. Other times the right portrayal--how that concept is rendered on the page--can go a long way. If you look at some of the concepts in Lord of the Rings, they might sound rather silly. Little people with hairy feet and huge appetites? Magical rings? But the portrayals take care of a lot of that. Another fantastic example is Guardians of the Galaxy. When the first movie was going to come out, a lot of people thought the concepts were ridiculous, or even dumb. A talking raccoon? A green lady? A giant tree that can only say the same three words? Man, that sounds dumb. But it was amazing! Why? Because of how the creators rendered those ideas. And I'll throw in Hamilton too, because most people who heard Miranda's concept thought it sounded dumb and ridiculous. But he had the vision for what many others called a dumb idea. He saw how to marry hip-hop and rap with the founding fathers.

Here's what's crazy about some of these things. Lord of the Rings, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Hamilton ended up all being pioneering. They changed their industries. The world was not the same after them. So sometimes what the vast majority may think sounds stupid (because they don't understand it or have never seen it before) turns out to be revolutionary. In each of those cases, the creator had the vision for what the story could become--and he knew how to portray it to make it work for audiences. Perhaps in that way, there aren't dumb ideas (concepts), only dumb portrayals and motives. Those are the dumb ideas.

Probably almost no one is saying Lord of the Rings, Guardians, and Hamilton are dumb now. (And yet the world just wants to keep remaking the same things instead of something new--which is what made these things great to begin with.)

So sometimes you can even run with something ridiculous and see how you can make it work for the masses, like Guardians.

And sometimes with stupid ideas, if you actually poke fun of them on the page, instead of taking yourself so seriously, you can make them entertaining. And/or you can validate the situation to the reader, which I've talked about before on here.

Just remember, there is no shortage of dumb ideas. And if you aren't coming up with some stupid ones, you are probably blind to your own creative process or too timid to face the rubbish head on to get to the good stuff.

Read More

How to Outline When Starting a Story

Last week I started talking about outlining, specifically focusing on story structure and what to outline. You can visit that post here.

Usually when people talk about outlining, they are either referring to what to outline or how to outline. So today, I'll be talking about different ideas on how to outline.

One thing that I probably should have mentioned last time that I'll mention today is that much of outlining stems from brainstorming, so if you are having a difficult time writing down an outline, it may be because you haven't brainstormed enough. Some writers brainstorm and do an outline simultaneously. So if you are having trouble, ask yourself if you have brainstormed enough.

Read More

What to Outline When Starting a Story

Anonymous asked: Hi, I visit your tumblr frequently. Creative writing is my passion and I am learning a lot reading your posts. I have also read books about screenplay (and the book by Lisa Cron about how our brain works). I love writing fantasy young adult novels but for me it's hard to outline. Could you give me some tips? :-) (Forgive me for my grammar errors. English is not my first. language) :-) Thank you so much. When you publish your novel, I will love to read it :D 

Hi anonymous,

Well, talking about outlining can be a little tricky because just as people write differently, people outline differently. For creative writing, there aren't a lot of rules for how you outline. Some writers don't outline at all. They simple start writing and find their story as they go. Personally, I'm a big outliner, but I also leave myself some room in case I come up with better idea along the way.

Now, for some, when they talk about outlining, they simply mean planning things out ahead of time, and how and what to plan, but others mean the actual physical process of outlining (physically writing down and organizing their outline), so I'll try to talk about both.

Read More