Outlining with yWriter: Step # 10, creating scenes.

At this point, you should have three tools to help you develop the scenes of your story. You have a well written long synopsis, well fleshed out characters, and an event list that has been divided into representative chapters. Further you have taken those event lists and expanded them by further developing them in step # 8.

Now it’s time to build some some scenes into your chapters. Select your first chapter and from yWriters “Scene” menu at the top of the screan, select, “Create Multiple Scenes”

If you still have the events in the chapter listings from earlier, you may delete them if you like. Or if you feel you still need them as a guide line, leave them. Select your first scene and give it a title that is meaninful to you. Something that will make sense to you at a glance.

I’m not going to go into details on how to use yWriter’s scene functions. I tend to follows a different method for creating my scenes and so just type the contents into the scenes description area. But yWriter does offer a great deal of functionality. Especially if you look at tyour scenes as Action and Reaction.

I tend to prefer looking at my scenes as Scene and Sequel, and while my method arrives at the same location, I just prefer teh terminology. For some reason it makes sense to me. Secondly I like typing the contents of my scene outline into the description area, because it is easy for me to then print out a working outline.

Note that I don’t write my stories in yWriters wordprocessor. I prefer my own word processor. However, you can choose to write this way, creating your entire story within yWriter. You can even use other software to edit documents within yWriter (Search the yWriter site for mre information on how to do that at: http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html)

Steps 11 and 12 of the process involve writing and editing. Let your imagination take hold. And for now, this concludes the series of blog posts on How to Outline with yWriter.

World Building

One of the really fun things about writing fantasy and science fiction is world building. Dreaming up new races, and new places is very enjoyable. Unfortunately, it can also become very time consuming as well. It’s very easy to become so enamored by your developing world that you go completely overboard in your creations, sometimes investing most of, if not all of, your writing time.

So why not develop a simple solution. I’m talking about a method my father the engineer imparted to me. It’s not a new concept, but it is effective. In this case, I call it; the KISS method of world creation. In other words: Keep It Simple Stupid!

So just like beginning a new outline, it’s fun to start with a simple idea that gives the world flavor. In the case of the world of Anduan, I lit on the idea of having two moons. I wanted to create a world that wasn’t just set in fantasy. I wanted to create something that had an other worldly feel, see my page: World of Anduan. So aside from planting my humans on a planet with other intelligent humanoids, I needed something I could present as a constant to give Anduan a feel of its own. I settled on the idea that Anduan has two moons. A red moon and and orange moon (More about the moons of Anduan in a later post).

So now that I had that single idea resonating in my the foreground, I needed to give the planet a brief history of human habitation. It’s reasonably short, and a quick synopsis of the longer history is viewable on the page: World of Anduan.

With those basics out of the way I needed to decide a few things about the world. Is there magic. Of course, wouldn’t be fantasy without. So how does it work? (The answer again is for another post) but for now it’s enough that you find answers to these questions for yourself.

Religion is another issue. It is ever present in its many forms. I decided on a solid mix for Anduan, allowing some of the developing cultures to maintain a polytheistic approach while some of the more organized believe strictly in monotheism.

Finally it’s worth inventing a few races and cultures, even if you give them just a rough sketching. Enough to understand their motivations, their appearance, and how they survive.

From this point it is relatively easy to begin a few story ideas, sketching in details about the places you wish to write about as you go.

I think the real point to this rambling is: Create Only What You Must!!

How to Outline with yWriter: Step # 9, Further Fleshing out the Characters

For my last post in this series on outlineing with yWriter, we worked out a few details for each of the chapters we are writing. If you are pretty sure you have a rough idea of how the chapters should fit together, then it’s time to take a break and put more details into the characters. After all, it’s all about the characters isn’t it?

We’ll come back to the chapters in step # 10. For now, it’s worth getting to know your characters a little better. Open your project and from yWriter’s, Characters menu at the top of the screen, select add new. yWriters character menu has tabs for Name, Bio, Notes, and Picture. How you choose to use these is up to you. But it is worth filling these in with as much detail as possible. Start with physical descriptions and work your way toward personality traits and biography. Get as much detail as you can.

Once you’ve worked out the details, you might find it is fun to cast an actor for the part of your view point characters. Imagine casting Jack Nickelson as a psychopathic killer for your novel. Not hard to imagine, think of The Shining. But lets put a twist on it.  How about we make the lead a female and cast Sandra Bullock as the psychopathic killer. That gives the story a whole different feel. For more on Actors as characters, see my related post: Actors as Characters.

So spends some time working out the details of your characters. If you cast an actor, do a search on the web for pictures. yWriter allows you to add those pictures to your character bio.

Next post will begin the scene creation process of the outline. Hope you all have found this uesful!

How to Outline with yWriter: Step # 8: Flesh Out Each Chapter

Ever look at the menu on your favorite dvd version of a movie? Notice that you can select where to start by selecting scenes. For a quick exercise, pop in one of your favorites and look at the scenes menu. Every movie is a little different, but chances are you can watch one scene at a time and for each scene pick out a few mini scenes that you might write as part of your novel. The larger scene (what we will work on now) will be written into the chapter description box’s.

To start, open chapter one. You should already have your event list sorted to your chapters, so that when you open chapter one, you should have a couple of events listed in the scenes box. At this point, I always find it helpful to imagine what will happen in the chapter from a visual point of view. Imagine it playing out for you as if it were on a movie screen.

Make sure your event list is in the correct order and start with the first event. Imagine all the small things that might lead up to that first event. Be aware of the setting as you do so. In a sence you are just dividing the selected event into a series of smaller events by setting. I then type each of these events into my chapter description, categorized by the setting where they will take place.

So, if you have been following along for a while, you can see that I started with a very broad project idea and have slowly been working it down to minute details. Here’s an example of what I am talking about: Lets say that we start with an event for our character such as–Marina is betrothed to Prince George of Britania.

Now you can see this event sparks lots of ideas around how we will arive at the betrothel, certainly an entire story can be written about Marina’s betrothel. But for now, lets just stick with it as a chapter (generally I stick no more than 3 events into a chapter and generally the first chapters only have 1 or 2 at the most)

Here’s what I imagine from Marina’s betrothel, and notice I label them by setting, typing them into the chapter descriptions.

Setting – Marina’s private quarters

Setting – A betrothel dinner

Setting – The stables.

I’ve decided with my story that I am going to use three settings to delineate the first event in the story, Marina’s Betrothel. I know from all of the previous writing I have done (long synopsis and event list) that Marina is not happy about it and so I chose these three settings to further delineate her unhappiness, she argues with her mother in her private quarters, is unsociable when meeting her betrothed at dinner, Ultimately runs away to the stables. So here, I would start fleshing out this idea further.

Setting – Marina’s private quarters
* Marina is dressing in a ragged clothes to, secret clothes, to go riding with the stable boy
* Her mother comes in unanounced, catching her with her disguise on.
* Her mother is angry with her for dressing such a way.
* Her mother has a dress she brought with her that she wants Marina to wear.
* Marina protests, mostly because she has plans.
* But she can tell her mother about her plans, because she has been spending time with the stable boy whom she is infatuatied with.
* Her mother tells her that she is being summoned for a betrothel dinner, Marina is mortified

Setting – A betrothel dinner
* Marina is forced to sit next to Prince george during the dinner.
* Per custom she is supposed to be courtly and polite, her best behavior, but she can’t help to be rude.
* Besides, Marina thinks Gerge quite unatractive with his gangly build and his pock marked face, draining venom from each tiny sore.
* Marina can’t stop dreaming of the stable boy she is so enamored with.
* Marina does everything she can wrong at the dinner to seem rude, she knows that to be polite might earn her acceptance from Prince george.
* The dinner comes to an end over a conversation in which George is aske if he finds Marnina acceptable, He does
* Marina runs from the dinner, running for the stables.

Setting – The stables.
* At the stables, Marina finds her handsome boy.
* Marina tells him she plans to run away, and that if he wants to go he’d better saddle a horse.
* A moment passes where the boy comforts her.
* They saddle their horses and ride away.

So you can see that some of this might be a bit rough. I suggest starting with one setting and just start writing bullets in a stream of consciousness fashion, based on what you think your characters will do. Come back to this in a day or so and look over what you have written. You may find that you need to add other things to it, or maybe change some of the things you have already written. Either way, take your time and get what you want before you move onto the next step.

Incidently, I used to use this activity to round out my outline. Yes, I used to start writing once this was done. I’ve since added the next steps which I will discuss in a later post, but if you feel comfortable at this point in writing, then go ahead and do so.

Actors as Characters

I’m not sure how many of you following this blog are writers and how many are readers. But it occured to me today, as it has many times over the years, that I often associate my characters with actors I like. Not so much when I’m reading, but definitely when I am writing.

That’s not to mean that I take a character from a movie and give him/her a different name. That would be wrong. But as actors are often selected for various characteristics, from the way they look to the way they speak, I too find it interesting to cast actors as the characters of my stories.

I don’t get as wound up about physical traits, changing those to fit my purpose. But often characters the actors have played will stand out in my mind as I am fleshing someone out and I’ll say, “You know what. That’s what I’m looking for in this person.”

For those of you who have read one of my previous posts, “Wow! Falita Kain!” you’ll understand what I’m talking about here. I mentioned in the post that Falita is Rebecah de Mornay from “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle.” As I said, I change physical characteristics to fit my needs. Falita has straight black hair. But it is easy when I set down and write to simply transport Rebecah’s character from the aforementioned movie (sorry, I can’t remember the characters name) into Falita’s body.

I know some people my call this cheating. They might even cry foul! But the fact remains that I completely flesh out these characters before I choose an actor. I know their physical attributes as well as their emotional compass. I know their backgrounds and their skill sets. Then I start thinking about actors that I think could play the part.

As another example. I can see Artamos being played by a young Liam Neeson. Tall and gangly. Hawkish nose. Direct manor of speaking. Yes, I enjoyed the character Liam played in the movies Taken and Taken 2.

So when I created Artamos’s master. The man who has trained him in the order of the Black Knights. I wanted a strong disciplined character hardened by the harsh realities of his service to the king. I wanted someone who could pull off that kind of persona with a sort of dry wit. And I could think of no one better than Jeremy Irons.

For those of you reading this posts and writing, give this a try. Fully flesh out your charactes and then take an evening to host a casting party for them. Pick actors you like and movies they’ve done and sooner or later something will stand out, and you will think wow, Julia Roberts is the perfect person to play this character. Or maybe it’s Renee Zellweger that peeks your interest (Anyone see her in Cold Mountain, Incredible!).

At any rate, give this idea a try and see how it works for you in your writing. I’ve found this to be an invaluable tool for me as when I set down to write. It gives me a tangible and very real person walking and talking in my stories. I use actors!

(I just hope they don’t show up wanting their salary for the work they do in my writing. I think they will be sorely disapointed! LOL)

How to Outline with yWriter: Step # 7 Defining Chapters

This is a part of the outlining process that others may disagree with. I know that there are lots of writers who prefer to generate long lists of scenes and shuffle them into the order by which their story will be told (Remember, we have not created scenes even though we are using the scene window, we have created a list of events that will occur in the story) Generally that story is then written and divided into chapters afterwords.

I prefer to know where my chapters are to begin with, because it breaks my story into small pieces to work with. And for my tiny little mind, smaller pieces are much easier to work with.

So for step # 7, I take all the events I have compiled under the chapter titled “Event List” and I begin to sort them into chapters. Remember, you may later develop anywhere from 3 to 7 scenes per event. So keep that in mind while you are sorting as it will have a bearing on how long your chapters are.

If you haven’t done so, now is a good time to review your “Event List.” Make sure all of the events are in the order you want them to occur in the story.

From the Chapter menu, select Create Multiple Chapters. yWriter automatically chooses 25 for the number to create. You can change this number as you see fit. But I usually just start with 25 and add or delete as necessary.

Select the chapter titled event list and in the scene window to the right, scroll to the top. Drag and drop your first event into Chapter 1. Continue dragging and dropping the events to chapters until you have them all sorted.

As you are doing this, try to imagine how many scenes you will use per event and how you would like the chapter to end. It helps me if I imagine how the events might occur as if I were watching them on the television screen. I like to end my chapters with a story question if possible.

How to Outline with yWriter: Step # 6, Building an Event List.

Note that I refer to this as an event list instead of a scene list. I prefer to view scene construction as the smallest level of outline construction. It’s the final step before writing.

If you followed along from step # 5, you should have created an event list for each character. And those event lists should be neatly packed into the chapter title that represents each characters name. Hopefully you have also taken time to arrange those events properly as you have built them.

Here’s a simple example of an event list;
1. Luke Skywalker buys a pair of droids.
2. Luke goes off in search of a missing droid and is attacked.
3. Luke meets Ben Kenobi (Spelling?)
4. Luke learns a princess is in danger.
5. Luke returns home to find his aunt and uncle dead.
6. Luke travels to a space port with Ben Kenobi
7. Luke, Ben, and Han are captured by a death star
8. Luke helps save the princess.
9. Luke joins the rebellion against the Empire.
10. Luke helps destry the Death Star.

I’m certain there are a few events missing from the actual movie, but I think you get the picture. I did those off the cuff. Take note though that the part of the movie showing Princess Lea becomeing a prisoner is not included. Those events are part of another characters story line and would thus be included in the chapter with that characters name for a title.

So if you have followed along and developed the story events so that each character progress’s from story goal to Story disaster, tragedy or comedy, then you should have well developed event lists under each character. Select the chapter titled for your main characthers main plot line. Then in the window to the right select all of the events you have created and drag and drop them into the chapter titled “Event List”

Hint: You can move all of them at once by left clicking the top evevnt(scene as it is labeled by yWriter) and scrolling to the bottom of the list. Then hold in the shift key and left click the last event. All events should be highlighted.

Repeat this process for the next plot line. If you have more than two plot lines then stop here and go to the chapter titled “Event List” You should now have the events for your first two plot lines in this chapter. Take your time and mix the events together using the drag and drop method. You want to try and get them into the order they will happen in the story. When you have the first two plot lines in order, select a third if you have it and add it to the chapter titled event list. Continue in this fashion until you have all of your events in the event list chapter, and in the order you want them

For further help on building event lists for your characters, try the list of exercises at the following website: http://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/how-to-write-a-novel.html.

How to Outline with yWriter: Step # 5 Make an Event List for Each Character

Here we are at step # 5. I know it seems to have taking an inordinately long amount of time to get this far in this series of post. But I’m certain that many of you have already worked ahead anyhow. Certainly you can move forward much more quickly on your own.

Anyhow, for this part of the outline, I simply keep a copy of my long synopsis in front of me and I begin picking out events for each character. If you followed last weeks post, then you should already have each charcter roughly fleshed out with a story goal and an ending. So the idea here is to make a list of events that happens as the character works to achieve his/her story goal while moveing toward the characters story ending.

Start with the main character by selecting the chapter with that charcters name. I usually start with the main plot line also, you can do the subplot later. Select “Create New Scene” from the “Scene” menu. When the new scene dialogue box pops up, type a one line description of the event in the scene title part of the dialogue and hit save. By default the scene is titled “New Scene”

continue this process until you have all the major events of the characters plot line listed. You should make an effort to ensure that they are in the order you want them. Remember yWriter allows you to drag and drop. So you should be able to shuffle your events around in the scene window (Window where all of your scenes for the selected chapter are shown) until you have them in the order you want them.

Repeat this process for every character and subplot.

Here are two other helpful ideas while working with this part of the outlineing process.
1. Use the Characters name at the beginning of each event title. This is helpful later when you shuffle all events together in your event list.
2. If your characters have subplots you may find it helpful to use the character menu to create your cast of characters up front, nameing each for main plot and subplot. Example. I might name a character as follows “Haiche MAINPLOT” and another “Haiche SUBPLOT” Then on the scene dialogue box I select the appropriate character and plot for each event.

As always I hope you are all finding these short posts helpful.

How to Outline with yWriter: Step # 4, Sketching out your Characters

Hello. The thought occured to me that many of you may be reading these posts about outlining fiction with yWriter. You may be wondering, who is this goof writing these things? So let me share just a moment who I am and why I am doing this. First off I am not a writing instructor! I am a guy who likes to tell story’s and prefers to use writing as the medium for my craft.

The reason I decided to present this series of posts is simple. Way back when I first started writing in high school, I was writing short fiction less than 10,000 words. I could get away with writing by the seat of my pants knowing just a beginning and where I wanted to end. Granted many of those stories weren’t all that good. But some weren’t bad either. I eventually tried a novel length manuscript (I tried several in fact) and was never able to complete one.

So what was the problem. NO OUTLINE! So I looked and looked on the internet trying to find help on outlining. I even bought software, which sad to say, was really focused on putting the creativity of the story in the hands of a computer. What I wanted was how to outline. I bought books, I read, I asked questions of english teachers who usually just shrugged. But I couldn’t find anything that made sense to me. I even did google searches on popular authors with phrases such as “How does Stephen King outline,” but I got nothing.

To this day, the best fiction writing book I have ever purchased is a book called “Scene & Structure” by Jack M. Bickham. The three by five card method he outlines is what eventually spawned the creative process I use to create outlines (Click on the book title to purchase at Amazon).

So there you have it. I’m writing these blog posts on yWriter, hopeing that someone else who wants to learn and develop an outlining method for longer works of fiction, doesn’t struggle along the same path as I did.

That’s enough Babble for now. lets move on to STep # 4, how sketching out your characters.

If you followed along so far, you should be able to see in the chapter menu of your current project a few chapters titled VP Character # 1 to #5. These chapters are for you to get a feel for your characters. Open the chapters and in the description box’s, flesh out a 3 to 5 sentence paragraph that outlines the characters goal, what is at stake for the character if he fails, where the conflict will come from as he/she pursues the goal with 3 -5 conflicts (A sentence for each). Be sure you know how each characters story is going to end–does he achieve thte goal (comedy) or fail (tragedy). Include a chapter for any subplots you may want to add to your story.

Note that you may not need all 5 that I included. Or you may need more depending on the size of your work. You can add and remove chapters from yWriters Chapter Menu. To remove, highlight the chapter you want removed and select Remove Chapter from the Chapter Menu. To Add, simply select Add Chapter from the chapter menue. Note that if you add you may want to change the chapter title. You can do this by double clicking the chapter.

Take your time, make sure you are happy with the descriptions for each charcter. Considering the long synopsis you just completed, you should have a good idea of what each charcters goal is. It is worth while to print out a copy of the long synopsis while doing this exercise. You can make notes on the long synopsis and in general edit it until you are happy that all of your charcaters stories fit neatly into that synopsis.

As alwayys, pleas share your thoughts and comments.

How to Outline with yWriter: Step # 3, Writing the Long Synopsis

In past posts about outlining I have presented the ideas and then an example. At this point, continuing to provide examples along the path of developing “A Warriors Tale” will become time consuming and detract from other more important writing points.

However, I will continue posting about my outlining method in hopes that some of you will find it useful. So here without any more explanation, is step # 3, Writing the Long Synopsis.

If you followed along with the last post, you developed a short synopsis represented by a single paragraph that was 3 to 5 sentences in length. Your next step is to write the long synopsis. Use Ctrl+C to copy your short synopsis then open the chapter titled “Long Synopsis” and paste it into the chapter description using Ctrl+V.

For each sentence in your short synopsis write 3 to 7 paragraphs expanding that sentence. Allow yourself to be creative and let the story flow in all directions, even the unexpected.

Once you have done this for all five sentences set the long synopsis aside for a day or two. Come back to it and read over it. You may find that your creative nature took the story in unexpected directions. Some good. Some not so good. Take your time and rework the long synopsis until it not only matches the story you envisioned, but marches along from one paragraph to the other in linear fashion.

Be sure that your long synopsis includes the other view point characters in your story and how they effect each part as you progress along. Take your time with this, it is your roadmark for makeing out the major event list of your story.