Million Dollar Outlines - 2013

Chapter 2: How this Manual is Organized

The process of inventing a novel doesn't all occur in one neat little step.

Before you can outline a story, you need to "brainstorm" it. The brainstorming process is a creative one—a right-brain function that comes often over weeks and months as you think about what you'd like to write. You'll get a flash of a scene that appears in your mind, like the piece to a jigsaw puzzle. Later you might come up with an intriguing idea for a character, or maybe a plot twist, and each of those are pieces to the puzzle, too.

Not all of the pieces that you find fit together neatly. It's like that crate full of puzzles that my mother used to keep—with dozens of old puzzles all thrown in together.

But eventually you find some that fit, and others you craft from scratch, and you begin putting each of these pieces together into a coherent story.

These images, and twists, and characters, and events are the meat of your plot, and coming up with them may take weeks or months. In fact, you'll keep getting new ideas as you write your novel or screenplay, and perhaps even long after. For example, twenty years ago I wrote a two-novel series with the books Serpent Catch and Path of the Hero. Last summer I woke up one night and realized that "If I just added this scene, it would really smooth out the transition between those novels."

Of course, no one rewrites novels after twenty years. We have to get the book onto the shelves. The same is true with movies. There is a saying in Hollywood: "Movies are never finished, just abandoned." Most filmmakers are editing their movie right up to within a day or two of its distribution.

So creating a strong outline is a process that often starts out strong, but can really take time. Revision of your story, even in outline form, is an important part of the creative process. A few years ago I was talking to Frank Frazetta, one of the greatest fantasy illustrators of all time. I was gazing at some of his paintings and noticed that they had changed subtly since they had been first published in the 1970s. I asked him about it, and he said, "Oh, yes, I take them out every few months and work on them. I might put a new wash over sections to deepen and bring out the color, or I might add a few highlights or new details." After thirty years, he was still creating his paintings.

You'll have the same urge to continue working on your outline. Try not to take too long in this process.

As you write the first draft, you'll normally recognize weaknesses in your outline and correct them then. Don't drag out the process for years.

But before you start your work, you need to get some basic ideas of what the shape of your story might be, who your characters are, what settings you want to describe, and so on.

While creating a story is a right-brain process, the act of outlining it in a logical fashion takes place in the left hemisphere of the brain.

Your goal then is to generate enough information in the creative half of your brain so that the logical portion of your mind can study the tale, recognize weaknesses, and make it strong enough to become a bestseller.

So our organization follows certain steps.

Step 1: Identify what Elements make a Bestseller.

In the first section of this course, we'll look at storytelling from a theoretical point of view, to try to understand how to tell stories that will please a wide audience. We'll also study bestselling movies and books and find the characteristics that are common to bestsellers.

Step 2: Identify the Elements that Let You Plot a Story.

Most books and computer programs on plotting give you a general idea of how plots work. But in this book we get into much more detail. We don't just study overall story shape or how to create character arcs, we get into how plotting devices can be used to bolster any plot and make your story more interesting.