So if you were Jane Austen, and had a good handle on your story, you might put together something like this. What we’re going to do now is add anything we know about subplots – or basically any story action that you DO know about, which doesn’t fit neatly into the above plot structure. So let’s develop the structure another notch. You might feel that our template so far is just a little too basic. Oh, and don’t bother separating those down into chapters just yet, you can worry about that later – but when you do, read this, it’s really useful! Developing Your Story Outline But by getting everything else in place and putting a “girder needs to go here” sign up, the structure is still brilliantly clear. It’s like you’re building a tower and you’re missing one of the girders. He killed someone? Stole money? Something else? Something to think about.”Īnd that’s fine. If you were Jane Austen you might, for example, start out by saying something like “Lizzy breaks with Wickham, because it turns out he’s a bad guy. In fact, if you struggle to know everything that goes in the ‘developments’ section, you can even drop in some placeholder type comments. You just need to do the same with your book or your idea, and keep it really simple. Now that’s easy, right? That’s the whole of Pride and Prejudice in a nutshell, and it was easy. Lizzy agrees to marry him, deciding now that she loves him, after all. It now looks like Lizzy can’t marry anyone. Lizzy’s sister elopes, threatening the social ruin of her family. She discovers Darcy loves her and that Wickham isn’t all he seems. She despises Mr Darcy and likes Mr Wickham. ![]() ![]() Lizzy meets proud Mr Darcy and dashing stranger Mr Wickham. Two wealthy gentlemen, Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy, arrive. Lizzy and her sisters will be plunged into poverty if her father dies, so they need to marry (and marry well). If your were plotting Pride And Prejudice, the outline might look something like this:Įlizabeth (Lizzy) Bennet, one of five daughters in Regency England. Let’s say your name was Jane Austen and you had a great idea for a story about a prideful guy and a charming but somewhat prejudiced girl. You probably want an example of what your outline should look like, right? ![]() And it’s those bones that will hook an agent/editor/reader. Fixating on intricate plot detail at drafting stage will only get in the way of finding the actual bones of your novel. It’s important to keep it simple at this stage as complex is our enemy. ![]() Initiating incident (what disturbs the status quo – conflict)Īnd now sketch in your answers in as few words as possible – aim for 1-3 sentences.To begin with we need to look at the key components of any story. What A Story Template Looks LikeĪ story template is just a simple method for getting all those brilliant pictures out of your head and on to the page in a way that will help your story ideas make sense to your readers. A simple but detailed plot outline for your book that will serve as a skeleton from which to hang the meat of your story (sorry for that rather macabre visual representation).Īs you go further into your writing journey you can make this into a pretty bullet journal or a colour coded Excel spreadsheet if you want, but for now you just need a pen and a piece of paper. The novel plotting template I will be demonstrating in this article is more of an outlining process. Very few writers can have a load of story ideas and start writing without any clear direction as to where they are heading and what is going to happen. In this step by step guide to plotting a novel I will be teaching you everything you need to know about novel plotting – from my favourite mind mapping method, to understanding character arcs and how to tie up loose ends.Īre you ready to learn the most important part of the writing process? Here we go… The Best Way To Plot A Novel (Or – full disclosure – it’s what you’re going to do. All stories share a simple common structure – so the simplest way to outline your novel is to use that universal template by way of scaffolding.įiguring out that template and how best to use it to create the best story possible for your readers is exactly what I’m going to do in this post.
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