marycatelli | Entries tagged with outlining

Events are moving. Forward in the outline, backward in the outline, out of the outline entirely.

I think I didn't think this part through clearly enough.

I essayed

So I'm off and considering a story. A fairy tale world in which they know the tales, after the manner of The Princess Seeks Her Fortune.

So when the stepmother and stepdaughter end up running away to seek their fortunes, they know they have an odd tale.

Unfortunately, so do I.

I think I may have to poke about tales with twos to joggle something loose.

I essay'ed

Trying to wrassle two stories in outline form at once. At least as much as the plot bunnies will allow

One has revealed that the heroine's heroic efforts to save lives will produce a backlash. People will have to die. Fortunately, it will be logical that these are people who cause trouble in another plotline.

The other one has revealed that the heroine will have to hear some backstory from the not-quite-love-interest-yet about how the number of wizards is so few, and he's the only adult in their number.

Sometimes plot bunnies multiply in odd ways.

Oh you plot bunnies!

Two very different stories about a character who finds herself in another world. The means by which they are moved differ, the situations they find themselves in differ, their powersets differ, and the reasons they have powers differ. Their enemies differ, and so does the conflict.

This probably means they should have different reactions to arrival, perhaps all the more in that they do not glide over it as a machine that the readers will simply accept as not relevant to the plot. (It is relevant in both cases, though -- the reasons differ.)

Both are going to have metaphysical questions, though. No matter how different I make them.

(And I don't even know if either one is a full story yet.)

I write in the outline that the hero fights an evil knight here, rescuing a prisoner.

I note that ravens are involved.

But I need to elaborate it into an actual scene.

Ah, the discovery you make about the adequacy of outlines.

As the meme goes:

Well, this story is clumpening. The outline hit the high points, which is good to ensure that it doesn't die on me half way -- BUT --

It's moving very sluggishly between the high points. At least the stuff is moving. Even if I do have to go back and put in things. Lots of things.

Was returning to an outline.

I remember that I decided two characters meeting had to happen later. Now I am wrestling with how she was important in how he managed to persuade two others of his harmlessness.

I think they may have to have met earlier.

A character is about to learn something.

( Read more... )

There's a group of people. They have to go do something.

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There's a thread in this story, that might not belong. A mercenary man, who's a magical knight, and a little girl he rescued.

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One advantage of a plot structure -- Save the Cat, Hero's Journey, Lester Dent's, what have you -- is that it gives you a place to put story ideas in order when the story is incomplete.

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So there are two scenes.

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So the big dramatic battle's coming up and about to spin off our hero into a setting where he can do things and expect consequences more than "perhaps survive."

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Was coming up to the climax in the outline.

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Some people can write scenes out of order.

I do that, and I generally manage to miss the scene when plodding on toward the ending. So I write in order.

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Keeping a collection of random notes on a story is wise. Something that may work out brilliantly may yet have no place in an outline because it's not situated in time, and you don't want to lose it.

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When working on an outline, I need it to be detailed enough.

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Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

being chiefly about the written word

Entries tagged with outlining

the muddle in the middle

Knowing Thyself, and Outlining

Linking The Beginning To The Ending

twisting the tale

My Writing Process

juggling death

juggling two stories

ah, the scene

the plot clumpens

ah notes

who was that?

ham-handed orchestration

does he belong?

outlining out of order

bright ideas

checking off the outline

back and forth

out of order

notes, notes everywhere, and not a plot to work

something happens here

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January 2026

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