Category: Writing

When I started writing my first novel, I didn’t have any story. I just had one incident in mind that I witnessed as a little girl back in India.

The son of our landlord, who lived in England, came to visit his parents. At their insistence, he had to marry a local girl before he left. A wedding was hastily arranged and we kids had a ball participating in festivities.

Once back in England the reluctant son wrote a letter to the girl that he was already married and had two children. He said he can’t get her to join him in England and she was free to do whatever she wanted.

I was too young to understand all the details (why didn’t he tell his parents that he was already married) but months later I visited that girl with my mother. I still remember her face. She was beautiful. I couldn’t understand how anyone could leave her in the lurch. My mother was furious though. How could someone destroy a life like that, was her infuriation. Her life was ruined for sure. She would always be treated as a second-rate woman.

This incident became the first plot point for my novel. I just added a twist to it with a “What if” question.

What if the girl went abroad and then found out that her husband was already married.

The second plot point also came from another real-life incident. Years ago an acquaintance of mine confided in me the ‘most weird thing’ that her boyfriend had done to her. I can’t disclose it here (it will give away the twist in the novel) but I knew instinctively that I have to use it in the novel.

The third plot point came from a single shot of a TV series that I had watched as a teenager. It was an image that implied more than any amount of dialogues or skillful plotting could (again disclosure will give away the story). All I had to do was to combine it with a number of real-life scenarios I was aware of and it would give a perfect ending to the book.

At this point, I had a loose storyline. What I needed was a method to plot it and to turn it into an outline.

I used three methods rather than just one. Each one of them strengthened the story in a different way.

1. A combination of Three-Act Structure and Seven-Plot-Points Method

The Three-Act Structure is a narrative model that divides a plot up into three sections – setup, confrontation, and resolution. These sections represent rising and falling action. Although it is time-tested, easy to master structure that is the basis for almost every Hollywood movie, its main drawback is that it is too broad and it doesn’t give much help in plotting the story.

It is best used in conjunction with the Seven-Plot-Points method which entails – the hook, the first plot point, pinch point 1, the midpoint, pinch point 2, second plot point and the resolution.

The following diagram beautifully blends the two methods.

At this point, I had no outline in place. The ‘what if’ scenario gave me a storyline and I was able to write a few more chapters. But then I stalled.

2. The Snowflake method

The strength of the Snowflake method is that it forces you to think of marketing first. It

In nutshell the method is:

• Step 1- Write a one-sentence summary of the novel.
• Step 2 – Write a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the novel.
• Step 3 – Write a one-page summary sheet for each major character.
• Step 4 – Expand each sentence of your summary paragraph into a full paragraph. All but the last paragraph should end in a disaster. The final paragraph should tell how the book will end. The whole thing should be no more than one page.
• Step 5 – Write up a one-page description of each major character and a half-page description of the other important characters.
• Step 6 – Expand the plot synopsis of the novel developed in step 4 to a four-page synopsis.
• Step 7 – expand your character descriptions into full-fledged character charts detailing everything there is to know about each character.
• Step 8 – Use the four-page synopsis to make a list of all the scenes that you’ll need to turn the story into a novel – write one line about each which includes point-of-view character and what happens.
• Step 9 – Take each line and expand it to a multi-paragraph description of the scene.
• Step 10 – Commence writing the novel.

The first step is the hardest. But if you can write the once sentence summary of your book at the onset, you will not waste days or months (or maybe years) figuring out what your novel is about.

Once the summary is done, the Snowflake method is an excellent tool to expand and discover the story in manageable chunks.

But there was no way to know whether the storyline had enough ups and downs. Whether it will keep the reader’s interest.

This is when I came across the book Save The Cat by Blake Snyder and learned how to balance the story and keep the momentum.

3. Save The Cat Beatsheet

Though written mainly for screenwriters Save The Cat gives an excellent tool to present the story in such a way that it keeps the readers interested.

The book divides the story into 15 beats. These beats are well described in Jessica Brody’s Beatsheet.

Once I familiarised myself with the 15 beats, it was time to apply them to the outline of my novel.

I did that in four steps:

1. Estimated how long is my novel was going to be.
2. Divided the number of words into acts.
3. Divided acts into scenes.
4. Figured out where the story beats should go.

Let’s say my book is going to be 80,000 words long.

By the 3 Act Structure

• First Act represents about 25% of the total word count
• Second Act represents about 50% of the total word count
• Third Act represents about 25% of the total word count

So, that means the breakdown for my 80,000-word book will be:

• First Act (80,000 x.25) = about 20,000 words
• Second Act (80,000 x.50) = about 40,000 words
• Third Act (80,000 x.25) = about 20,000 words

An average scene is about 1000 to 2000 words long, with the sweet spot being of 1500 words. I estimated how many scenes I was going to have in each act and ultimately in the book.

• First Act (20,000 words / 1,500-word scenes) = about 14 scenes
• Second Act (40,000 words / 1,500-word scenes) = about 28 scenes
• Third Act (20,000 words / 1,500-word scenes) = about 14 scenes

That means I am going to have approximately 56 scenes in the book. Now I can start figuring out where each of the 15 story beats will go.

In Save The Cat Blake Snyder lays out where each beat should go:

1. Opening Image – 0% to 1%
2. Theme Stated – 5%
3. Setup – 1% to 10%
4. Catalyst – 10%
5. Debate – 10% to 20%
6. Break Into Two – 20%
7. B Story – 22% )
8. Fun and Games – 20% to 50%
9. Midpoint – 50%
10. Bad Guys Close In – 50% to 75%
11. All is Lost – 75%
12. Dark Night of the Soul – 75% to 80%
13. Break Into Three – 80%
14. Finale – 80% to 99%
15. Final Image – 99% to 100%

So, to figure out where the beat should go in my novel I took the total number of scenes and multiplied it by the percentage listed above.

For example, the Midpoint occurs around the 50% mark of a story, (56 scenes x .5 = Midpoint occurs in the 28^th scene).

It can also be done with total word count (80,000 words x .5 = Midpoint occurs around 40,000 words).

To learn more you can go to the beautiful post written by Savannah Gilbo How to Outline Your Novel with Save the Cat!

Hope this will help you to outline and plot your novel.

Do write to me about your experience or your way of outlining your novel.

Photo by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash

I wish someone had told me how to outline my novel when I started writing the first draft of my novel.

I was expecting that the year-long novel writing course I signed up for would help me flesh out the story first before embarking on – making an impact, structure, backstory, characterization, narrative types, the middle, scenes, chapters, amazing endings – but it didn’t.

Instead, I became the first one in the group (volunteered by the course leader) to bring the first chapter for group critique.

Although my chapter was well received as it had lots of drama, action and a cliff hanger at the end, it put me on the wrong path.

I became a pantser. I was discovering the story as I was writing it. It worked fine for a while but then it stalled. I had no idea how to take it forward and whether it was going in any direction.

That is when I had to stop and learn about outlining.

And learn I did.

Kate Grenville wrote that she had 100-page research material before writing ‘The Secret River,’ her best known work. Margret Atwood admit time write 70 to 80 page outline before commencing her books. But Robert Ludlum beat them all. He writes a 100-page outline for all his books.

I used to think 100-page outline is over the top. It is a killer. But if it was something that could help my novel see the light of the day, I am up for it.

And so should be you.

Midway during writing my novel, I am on a mission to write 100-page outline and see whether it will take out of the rut and help me finish it.

I am researching and sharing everything along the way starting from how to outline.

There are many ways to outlining. One is not necessarily better than the other. But what works for one writer may not work for another. Also, it depends upon the story you are telling.

I was going to write a lengthy post to describe different ways to outline but then I found the following video. In sixteen minutes it gives a summary of the most prevailing outline methods by some of the great writers on this planet.

God bless Michael La Ronn for creating this video. He has got many more on his channel.

And if you still want more here are three links but you will have to read the text. There are no videos.

• Check K.M. Weiland‘s method here.
• Check Glen C. Strathy’s method here.
• Check Kristen Kieffer‘s outlining method here.

What method do I use, you may ask.?

I use a blend of The Snowflake, Scenes & Sequels and Save the Cat Beat Sheet methods.

There is plenty to take in from all these links. I will talk more about my method in the next post.

I must admit that my approach to novel writing so far has been wrong. So wrong, that I haven’t been able to finish the damn thing in five years, even though the plot is clear and characters are living in my head constantly chattering, impatient to see the light of the day.

Not only I, but most of my writing group buddies have chosen the obvious but wrong approach to write our novels.

The usual and amateurish approach is to come up with an idea, flesh it out, identify the main plot point and start writing. Character development is done on the fly. Research is non-existent. The point of view is selected at the beginning and is very hard to change because we are already into writing chapters.

Believe it or not, this is what most amateur writers (including myself) do when it comes to novel writing. And then we expect, whatever that comes out of our pen to be of publishable quality.

There is a better way to write a novel.

The way of professionals.

I first read about this approach in the ‘Searching for the Secret River‘ the book Kate Grenville wrote about writing her most admired novel ‘The Secret River. 

The last night I was watching a documentary on Margaret Atwood, an all-time great writer of our times, and she admitted to the same approach.

As I researched more writers, successful writers who have written several books, it started becoming evident how they are able to write so much consistently while the amateur writers struggle to finish one.

The secret lies in your first draft.

I always thought the first draft is very much like the final draft with the perfect opening line, a cliff hanger first chapter and then page-turning subsequent chapters leading to a satisfying end. All this is left to do in the subsequent revisions is polishing the language and filling any minor gaps.

I couldn’t be wrong.

I had written 12 chapters of the book even before I had fleshed out all the characters, their wants and desires, their motivations, and their quirks. I hadn’t figure out the subplots and I had no idea how to fill in the middle part.

This is where Kate Grenville’s revelation came to rescue. She said when she had a hundred pages worth of material from the research she was doing for ‘The Secret River,’ she knew she was ready to write the book.

Think of it, one hundred pages worth of material before starting the first chapter. All her research was done prior to writing the book.

Remember ‘The Moby Dick’, the 400 hundred page novel. Herman Melville talked to the survivor of the shipwreck and wrote down the whole story. He knew the whole story before he commenced. He didn’t have to figure it out as he went along.

The first draft of a novel is where you tell the story to yourself to figure it out. And I do mean tell not show. Just like you would tell the story of a movie you recently watched on TV that your friend missed out on.

This is where you will ‘fish out’ the story. You will create characters and you would figure out everything about them. Where were they born, where did they go to school, how they reacted to childhood traumas and what their motives are. This is where you will capture all the research you would do. You will find gaps and fill them. You will make the storyboard and figure out the mirror moment.

This is like writing a synopsis of your story but not after finishing your book but before commencing it.

And it is for not for agents or publishers but for yourself.

Some people call it a detailed outline.

Tomorrow I will talk about different approaches to write a 100-page outline of your novel.

Many times we can’t figure out when an article or story should end. The same goes for books, whether it is fiction or non-fiction.

As a writer, we have collected so much material that we keep on going long after the article, story or a book has reached its logical end.

What is that logical end?

The logical end is when you have made the argument.

Every piece of writing is making an argument.

Writing usually starts with an idea that often comes as a question or a problem. We explore that question, (like the question at the start of this post) and we make an argument.

Finding the argument in the story is a tool, and it can be used by filling in the blanks in the following line:

‘every …. can or should …’

This simple equation to be used to find the argument in your writing even before you started writing.

If your book is about travel writing your argument could be ‘every traveler can become a travel writer’ then give them ten steps to become a travel writer.

If your book is about taming a dog, the argument you could be making is ‘every dog can be tamed even the old and rigid ones then through your book you give them ten ways how the readers can do it.

If your book is about storytelling, the argument you are making is ‘every person should become a storyteller then give them ten benefits and teach them six elements of storytelling.

What you are doing through the argument is you are entering the mind of the reader and getting them to think differently, act differently, or teach something they want to learn.

You don’t want them to just read the article/ story/ book, you want them to do something with it.

It is easy to understand the concept of every piece of writing is making an argument in non-fiction, but what about fiction writing.

In fiction writing, the argument is made through the story.

Let’s have a look at arguments in some well-known stories.

The argument Shakespeare is making in Hamlet is, ‘everyone should stand for injustice.’

The argument of Romeo and Juliet is ‘the hatred can lead to bloodshed.’

The argument the movie Rocky is making that ‘even an underdog can win.’

None of these stories give ten points to prove the arguments they make, but they do it by weaving the argument within the story.

Because without an argument, there is no story.

If you’re telling your life’s story, it’s not just a story of survival, it’s a
story of hope and perseverance, and when somebody reads that story, they’re gonna get that too and apply that to their own situation, their own obstacles that they’re facing.

And when that story should end?

When the argument has been made.

It is that simple.

Anything after that is waffle weakens the story.

Now decide on what argument you are making, with whatever piece of writing you are doing, and stop as soon as you have made it.

Just like I am at this point.