Tag: Finish Writing Your Novel Now!

Finish Writing Your Novel Now!

Writing Assignment #3: Outline your novel! 

Mandy Webster

If you’ve been following my blog the past couple of weeks, you’ve probably learned a lot about novel structure and how to outline an idea as part of the planning stage of the novel writing process. You may be wondering, what now, brown cow? Well, I hope you have a lot of notes and ideas at the ready because it is finally time to outline your novel!

Image generated using artificial intelligence.

By now, I hope you have settled on one or a couple of story structure outlines that will meet the needs of your novel or novels. I say, “or novels” because at this point, you may still have a couple of ideas that you are hashing out. While you may be tempted to narrow your focus to just one at this point, I say keep working on all those ideas for now, at least until a clear forerunner emerges. Just make sure you settle on one novel to draft at a time. Right now, you still have plenty of time to consider which novel you want to write first. For now, let’s jump into our next writing assignment.

Writing Assignment #3: Outline your novel

Outlining a novel is a personal process, and there is no one “right” way to do it. However, here are some general steps you can take to outline your novel:

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Larry Brooks’ Story Structure

Mandy Webster

The Larry Brooks story structure is one that I have used several times and find to be very useful when planning a novel. It is a structure that I will detail here in depth because – to me – it seems to be one of the more effective methods of outlining a novel.

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Brooks is a writing coach, author, and speaker known for his expertise in the craft of storytelling. He is the author of several books on writing, including Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing; Story Physics: Harnessing the Underlying Forces of Storytelling; and Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves: Criteria-Driven Strategies for More Effective Fiction. Brooks is also the founder of Storyfix.com, a website dedicated to helping writers develop their storytelling skills. Brooks’ approach to writing emphasizes the importance of structure, character development, and genre expectations. He believes that successful stories must meet certain criteria, and that writers who understand these criteria can create stories that are more engaging, satisfying, and marketable.

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Kurt Vonnegut on story structure

Mandy Webster

ANNOUNCEMENT: ISO guest bloggers to write posts for each of the story structures listed below. Please scroll to the bottom of this post for details.

Kurt Vonnegut, the acclaimed American author known for his satirical and anti-war writings, was critical of the traditional, linear approach that dominates much of literature and popular culture. He preferred a more experimental, non-linear approach that allowed for more creativity and surprise. In a lecture on the shapes of stories, Vonnegut suggested that stories could be graphed on a simple chart, with the y-axis representing the level of happiness or unhappiness experienced by the protagonist, and the x-axis representing the progression of the story over time.

Infographic by Maya Eilam

Vonnegut also identified several basic story structures that he believed were common to most stories. These structures are based on the emotional journey of the protagonist and the overall shape of the plot. Following are some examples of a few of the simple shapes of story structures identified by Vonnegut:

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Story Structure: The Hero’s Journey

Mandy Webster

The Hero’s Journey story framework was first described by Joseph Campbell, a scholar of mythology and comparative religion. Campbell’s influential book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, first published in 1949, examines the patterns and themes that recur in myths and stories from cultures around the world. (I highly recommend watching the below interview of Campbell with Bill Moyers to learn more.)

In the book, Campbell outlines the monomyth, a narrative structure that he argues is present in many of these stories. Campbell’s idea was that the Hero’s Journey is a universal pattern that reflects the human experience of transformation and growth. He believed that the monomyth could be found in many different cultures and historical periods, and that it offered a powerful framework for understanding the ways in which stories shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

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Story Structure: In Medias Res

Mandy Webster

The concept of “in medias res” (Latin for “in the midst of things”) in novel writing dates back to ancient Greek and Roman literature. The Roman poet and philosopher Horace wrote about the technique in his Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry), which was published around 18 BCE. In this work, he advised poets to begin their stories in the middle of the action, rather than at the beginning, in order to grab the reader’s attention and create a sense of urgency. As a novel writing technique, in media res also involves beginning a story in the middle of the action, rather than at the beginning, in order to capture the reader’s attention and create a sense of immediacy and urgency.

The Iliad is an early example of a story that began in the middle of the action. Image generated using AI.

One of the earliest examples of in medias res can be found in Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, which begins in the middle of the Trojan War, rather than at the beginning. This technique was also used by other ancient Greek and Roman writers, including Virgil in his epic poem, The Aeneid.

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Story structure: The Fichtean Curve

Mandy Webster

The Fichtean Curve, also known as the narrative arc or the dramatic arc, is a storytelling model that describes the structure of a story or narrative. While the term “Fichtean curve” is named after Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a German philosopher who was influential in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it is not clear if Fichte himself originated the idea of the narrative arc (Writing Manuals for the Masses: The Rise of the Literary Advice Industry from Quill to Keyboard, ).

The Fichtean curve is often attributed to the German poet and playwright Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, who was a contemporary of Fichte and a close friend. Schiller was interested in the structure of drama and wrote extensively on the subject, and it is likely that he was the one who popularized the narrative arc as a storytelling model.

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Five-act story structure

Mandy Webster

The Five-Act Structure is similar to the three-act structure but breaks the story into five main parts, with additional turning points in the middle. This structure is commonly used in Shakespearean plays.

Image created using artificial intelligence (AI).

A five-act story structure outline breaks a story into five main parts, with additional turning points in the middle. Here is a general breakdown of each act:

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Three-act story structure

Mandy Webster

The three-act story structure is the most commonly used basic story structure in modern storytelling, and it consists of a setup, confrontation, and resolution. While the origins of the three-act structure are difficult to trace, it has been used in storytelling for centuries and is often attributed to Aristotle, who wrote about the importance of dramatic structure in Poetics.

The three act story structure may be as old as stories themselves! Image created with Canva Free AI Image Generator.

The basic structure of each of the three acts follows:

  1. The Setup: This is the first act of the story, where the characters and their world are introduced. The Setup establishes the status quo and introduces the main character, their goals, and the obstacles they will need to overcome.
  2. The Confrontation: This is the second act of the story, where the main character faces increasing obstacles and challenges on their journey toward their goal. The Confrontation is where the story’s tension and conflict typically reach their peak, as the protagonist struggles to overcome their biggest obstacles.
  3. The Resolution: This is the final act of the story, where the main character faces the climax of the story and resolves the central conflict. The Resolution typically includes a sense of closure, as the protagonist achieves their goal or is transformed by their journey.
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Pantsing vs Plotting: A case for the dreaded outline

Mandy Webster

“Pantsing” and “plotting” are two very different approaches to novel writing. The term “pantsing” comes from the phrase, “flying by the seat of your pants,” which means to improvise or make something up as you go along. The phrase was first used in the 1930s in reference to airplane pilots who navigated without the aid of instruments.

Few writers are successful at pantsing their way to the end of a good manuscript. Those who can do it possess a certain kind of magic that most of us will never obtain. Image created with Canva Free AI Image Generator.

The term “pantsing” in the context of writing specifically refers to a technique where the author writes without a detailed plan or outline, instead relying on inspiration and improvisation to guide the story. This technique is also known as “discovery writing” or “organic writing.” It is unclear exactly when the term “pantsing” was first used in this context, but it is thought to have gained popularity in writing communities and workshops in the 1990s. It has since become a widely used term in the writing world, particularly in discussions about outlining and planning versus improvisation and discovery.

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Finish Writing Your Novel Now!, Novel Writing Assignments

How to Write a Novel: Concept and Premise

Mandy Webster

Are you ready to start writing your novel? At the end of today’s post, you’ll find two brief writing assignments to help you get started!

Two basic elements of story

In novel writing, a concept and a premise are two different elements of a story. A concept is a basic idea or notion that provides the foundation for a story. It is the starting point for a novel and is usually expressed in a single sentence. For example, “a young girl discovers she has magical powers and must defeat an evil wizard to save the world” is a concept for a fantasy novel.

Every novel has both a concept and a premise at its core. Image created using Canva AI Image Generator.

A premise, on the other hand, is a more detailed description of the story. It includes the characters, setting, plot, and conflict, and explains how the concept will be explored in the novel. A premise is usually expressed in a paragraph or a few sentences. For example, “In a world of magic and dragons, 11-year-old Hermione Granger discovers she is a witch and must join forces with her friends Ron and Harry to stop the dark wizard Voldemort from taking over the wizarding world” is a premise for the novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

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