» Blog Archive » Plotting Your Novel – The Quick Outline Tool Nothing draws a line in the sand of novel writing like the question, “To outline or not to outline.” Is there any kind of middle ground? In fact, I think there is. When I started my first novel, I wrote into the void, with no outline to guide me. By the time I’d rewritten the 3rd draft with no more idea where the story was going than when I’d set out along the path years earlier, I decided I’d better channel my inner Virgo and see what outlining could do for me. So I learned everything I could about outlining. I made convoluted complex road maps. As my good friend and YA author Janice Hardy is fond of reminding me, “Plot is a verb, not a noun.” So let’s go plot your character’s journey… Okay, so if we think of plot as a verb, then what we are looking for isn’t some magical overlay that we place onto our story or our characters, but an organic progression of actions our characters “do” or “take” that become the plot. But what choices should they make? Let’s talk about Act I.
20 Essential Elements of a Bestselling Thriller, by Jodie Renner If you want your thriller or romantic suspense to be a compelling page-turner, make sure you’ve included most or all of these twenty elements: 1. A protagonist who’s both ordinary and heroic. Rather than having a “Superman” invincible-type hero, it’s more satisfying to the readers if you use a regular person who’s thrown into stressful, then increasingly harrowing situations, and must summon all of his courage, strength and inner resources to overcome the odds, save himself and other innocent people, and defeat evil. 2. The readers need to be able to warm up to your main character quickly, to start identifying with her; otherwise they won’t really care what happens to her.So no cold, selfish, arrogant characters for heroes or heroines! 3. Your antagonist needs to be as clever, strong, resourceful and determined as your protagonist, but also truly nasty, immoral and frightening. 4. 5. If it doesn’t, change your protagonist — or your story line. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.
Old Plots, New Plots This turned out to be a long entry so Thriller Guy is going to break it up into two. He'll be putting the other half up in a few days. TG has spoken many times about the difficulties in coming up with great plot ideas. Oh, how many times have the Little Ones gathered at his knee and pleaded, (pled?) “Oh, TG, tell us your secret, how can we too come up with killer plot ideas?” TG reads a ton of books, and most of them are running through the same old plots, mash-ups and ripoffs. But instead of continuing to rail against the paucity of today's plots, TG is going to reprise an old plot and give you some new ones he likes over the last year's reading. Clive Cussler used to be the master of the over-the-top, bizarro plot. It's 1865 and the Confederate ship CSS Texas takes on a special prisoner and fights her way out through a Union blockade. OK, TG is too tired to go on. The point is, it's one hell of a plot.
The 39 Steps to writing a perfect thriller by author John Buchan's grandson By Toby Buchan Updated: 22:01 GMT, 15 January 2011 'The 39 Steps, in its language, its settings, its nods to contemporary technology and its characterisation, belongs firmly to the 20th century,' said John Buchan's grandson, Toby On a late-summer’s day in 1914, a man walks with his small daughter down a rickety flight of wooden steps leading to a private beach from a house on the clifftop. The girl, just turned six, is improving her counting by determinedly calling out the number of each step. ‘Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-NINE!’ Thus Alice Buchan gave the title to her father’s, my grandfather’s, new novel, little knowing that it would prove to be one of the most enduring adventure stories ever to be published. John Buchan wrote The 39 Steps in a few weeks towards the end of 1914, while staying with his wife and children at Broadstairs in Kent, in a house on the cliffs overlooking Stone Bay. He need not have fretted.
Five Rules for Writing Thrillers - David Morrell Thrillers have never been more popular. On the New York Times fiction bestseller lists, over half are often filled with examples of the genre. Thrillers even have their own organization, International Thriller Writers (which I co-founded with Gayle Lynds). But thrillers didn’t always have this presence. Back in 1972, when my debut novel, First Blood, introduced the character of Rambo, bestseller lists favored a mix of literary, sentimental, and historical fiction as well as the sort of celebrity gossip novels that we identify with Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann. Not that thrillers were entirely absent. If you’re a writer who’s thinking of going in this direction, here are five pieces of advice that might help. NUMBER ONE: KNOW YOUR MOTIVESHave a good reason for writing a thriller. I remained sane by imagining stories in which I was a hero overcoming adversity. By contrast, if you’re merely writing thrillers because they’re currently popular, you ought to think twice.
Creative Writer - Plotting a thriller Last month I wrote on the importance of plot. This time round I will take that discussion a step further and look at a genre where plot is paramount — the thriller. What makes a good thriller? Broadly speaking, plots can be placed in one of two categories — the siege narrative and the quest narrative. The Day of the Jackal begins in the early 1960s as a quest narrative, where a professional assassin codenamed the Jackal is hired by the Organisation de l'armee secrete (OAS), a right-wing French terrorist organisation committed to killing the then French president Charles de Gaulle for granting independence to Algeria. Narrative transformation As the novel proceeds, however, it transforms from a quest narrative into more of a siege narrative as the French secret service get wind of the plot to murder the president and start hunting the Jackal. What makes The Day of the Jackal a stellar piece of writing is that we all know the Jackal's quest is doomed to fail right from the outset.
Story Structure, Script Outlines, Screenplay Writing | Scribe Meets World How to Write a Script Outline | The 8 Essential Plot Points Plot is THE driving force of your screenplay, so it’s essential that you spend time on your plotting skills when you’re writing a script outline. You can create the most interesting character in the world, but without an equally interesting plot, the audience will not want to spend 90-120 minutes with that person. For example, many people find Charlie Sheen’s current 2011 self-destructive spiral interesting to read and gossip about. But would they want to spend an hour and a half of their lives watching him swill alcohol, do drugs, and oogle women? I think not. But give Charlie boy a goal–perhaps to rejoin TWO & A HALF MEN, the successful sitcom he was kicked off of–while he overcomes his addiction to alcohol, drugs, & women… …and that, people might watch because they’ll want to know if he can pull it off. Since you want to know how to write a script outline, let me clue you into the dirty little secret about plot: With rare exception, all movies have the SAME structure. What do you think?
Outlining your novel: a method. » A.J. Hartley Ok, let’s start by saying what this isn’t: it’s not a post about why you should outline rather than write by the seat of your pants (and it would be great if we could stay away from that particular debate in the comments). It’s also not about how you should outline your novel. It’s about how I happen to do it. At Magical Words we often say that there are many different ways to approach writing and that not all methods work for all writers. This post is going to be a case in point. As I’ve said before, I used to be a pantser, but found that my books often lacked a tightness and sense of purpose because I had a hard time getting enough distance from the first draft to really knock it into shape. But opting to outline a book doesn’t present a single formula to work by. I don’t work like that. Some authors talk of their outlines as if they are blueprints which nail down every feature of the final book or roadmaps which outline a journey, but permit some deviation along the way.