HOW TO OUTLINE | 3 act 9 block 27 chapter example

hello and welcome my name is Kat and today I'm going to share an example of my three-act 9 block 27 chapter outline method last week I posted a brainstorming video where I developed a story idea and at the end of that video I was like this is the point where I'd start writing it down in outline form so here I am to show you what that looks like how do I outline before I get into it I want to think underlined for sponsoring this video today underlined is an online community brought to you by penguin Random House for both readers and writers alike it's a place to discover new books and connect with other readers and also connect with other writers and share your writing and currently helping to host a writing contest with them which end September 7th so you do still have time to enter if you would like to I'll link my previous video down below where I talk more about the rules and share my writing prompt for the contest I do also just recommend watching that brainstorming video before this one just so you have more contacts for this story that I'm going to be outlining but of course I will be explaining the story as I outline so you should be able to follow along even if you don't watch that video but I recommend watching it go watch it okay let's get into it first I want to do a basic overview of this structure so I start with three acts a beginning a middle and an end and then I further divide those and I give each act its own beginning middle and end and I call these nine things blocks because I don't know that was the word that stuck in my head each block has its own kind of arc its own story pattern which is just a very general story pattern basically we start with a stasis and then something happens to disrupt that stasis and then we react to that disruption and we struggle to find a new stasis and this cycle just repeats over and over again in a story and this is why I like to divide each block into thirds again because it's we kind of divided into thirds naturally like that's just how story flows beginning middle end and I call these 27 parts chapters just because I feel like that works of course the actual chapters in a book can be divided differently but I like to use the 27 as kind of a baseline if each chapter is 3,000 words that's about 15 pages which feels like a good length through chapter and that makes for an overall word count of a t-1000 which is a great place to aim for as far as word count goes but anyways let's start at the beginning block one is the introduction the inciting incident and the fallout the immediate reaction to that inciting incident block 2 is the longer-term reaction it's usually a rebellion against the changes the inciting incident has well incited then the protagonist takes action because that's what protagonists do Pro tags gonna Pro tag and then of course there is a consequence to that action in block 3 we have pressure increasing because of those consequences then we have the first major plot twist and we are pushed into the new world of the second act in block 4 we get to explore this new world and have some fun and games as we play around in this new situation and to balance out all the new stuff we also have some juxtaposition some reminders of the old world in block 5 we have another pressure chapter as we build up to the midpoint and then of course we have the midpoint and following that is a reversal a turning point we're in the second half of the story now and there is no going back to the old world in block 6 we have another reaction / consequence kind of chapter then another action chapter this action chapter can also be thought of as trials like the protagonist is being tested in new ways but they often succeed or at the very least they come out of the trials more determined and dedicated than ever before in block 7 we have the calm before the storm which actually is not super calm because we're building up lots of pressure and tension as we move toward the second major plot twist what ruins everything and is immediately followed by the darkest moment the dark night of the soul all hope is lost but in black 8 no it turns out hope is not lost because we have a power within that brings the protag back from the brink of death and despair then the protagonist takes action and rallies the troops and sets into motion the convergence of the story lines everything is building up and coming together for the finale and here we are in block 9 the finale which is pretty straightforward we have our final battle the climax of the story and at last our resolution and the ending of the story so this is the basic outline skeleton and now we're going to jump into our specific example so let's start outlining this story about Haunted tattoos and sisters who don't get along and murder mystery and romance and competition we have so much good stuff to work with let's start outlining seblak wine introductions we meet the two sisters and they hate each other they are opposites the older sister is a perfectionist overachiever the younger sister is a slacker mess and then the older sister dies and the younger sisters tattoo starts to bother her and she feels like she's seen glimpses of her dead sister and the sisters come to realize that ghost sister seems to be psychically bound to the younger sisters tattoo in the second block we have the reaction / rebellion the younger sister naturally freaks out because she doesn't want to be haunted and she starts doing things to try to exorcise her sister but nothing the younger sister tries works so the sisters get the idea that younger sis has to help complete ghost sisters unfinished business so now the younger sister has a mission and she can take action she needs to get herself accepted into the elite program that her sister was previously in the consequence here is that she is not remotely qualified for this program so she has to like really study and prepare so she can deceive the professor into thinking she's qualified for block three we have this chapter of pressure the younger sister is taking the test and doing this interview and it's very stressful but plot twist it's not just a written test and an interview there's also a hands-on mechanical engineering aspect and you know go sister can't really help with that because she's in cap oriole somehow she manages it for the push chapter we get the results of the test the younger sister has been accepted into the program she gets a quick tour of the lab maybe meets some of the new people who work in the lab and we are just pushed into this new world block for new world this is a pretty straightforward chapter this is the younger sisters first day first few days in the lab this is her you know learning things and spending time with these new people trying to work on her sister's project and convince everyone she's qualified for fun and games this is where we start bringing in the romance there's a relationship developing between the younger sister and someone else in the lab who just so happened to be like the Nemesis of ghost sister when she was alive for the old world juxtaposition chapter we can have the sisters are viewing like let's get to the root of what makes them fight ghost sister once younger sister to focus exclusively on the project but younger sister wants to focus on the hottie in the lab moving on to block size for this pressure chapter we want to have some competition pressure going on but the main focus is the pressure between the sisters this tension and their relationship and it kind of builds to a big fight and a blowout maybe ghost sister tries to leave like she decided she doesn't want to help younger sister anymore because she's just fooling around like you're on your own for the mid-point we can have the younger sister trying to figure out things on her own but then she discovers that the older sister was murdered it wasn't an accident it was murder so for the reversal here the sisters make amends they talk it out and start to repair the relationship and decide that they are on each other's team like yes they have their differences but one of them being murdered is enough to like really bring them together for block 6 the reaction / consequence chapter we have the younger sister going to the police and trying to report this murder but they don't buy it they need evidence they need proof they need something so now we move into the trials now the younger sister is really investigating this murder she's looking at everyone else in the lab suspiciously also she might be a little bit nervous that she's the next target maybe there's even an attempt on her life or like a close call an almost accident that could be construed as an attempt on her life even though she doesn't find any hard evidence that she can bring to the police she's still dedicated to figure this out like now younger sister is really invested and involved in this she's determined to win the competition and solve her sister's murder for block 7 we start with the calm before the storm there's a lot of stressful murder competition stuff happening but at least romance for younger sister is going well like at least the younger sister has one person she can trust plot twist love interest is actually the killer oh and here we are in the darkest moment younger sister has been betrayed maybe the killer destroys ghost sister's project and leaves the younger sister to die somewhere all hope is lost but then we move into blockade and no hope is not lost we muster up that power within and we break free we won't be defeated we rally the troops you know maybe we call the police we call another friend for backup and we got to get ourselves back into the competition all of the plot lines start to converge together the sisters have fully repaired their relationship and they're working together flawlessly they make it back to the lab and It's Showtime we fly in a block nine where we have our final battle the climax and the resolution now I don't really have a lot of specifics for this block I don't really have a lot of specifics for the third act in general but I at least have the first act the first half or so pretty solidly outlined and the sketchy second half will solidify more the closer we get to it like I don't even have names or personality details or anything worked out for the main characters things are definitely going to change as I progress with the story but I have a nice general map here but it is quite general in this overall format so let's go back to the beginning let's go back to block one and take a look at what a more in-depth outline would look like because this is so vague like introduce the sisters great how so I have been brainstorming and trying out different possibilities in my head and this is what I'm currently thinking in Chapter one we meet the older sister she is in the lab she's working on her project interacting with the people in the lab who younger sister meets later on and then older sisters experiment goes wrong and she dies at the end of the chapter in the next chapter we meet the younger sister who you know maybe if she wakes up with a start because her tattoo is hurting but she doesn't think anything of it and she proceeds to go about her day we are introduced to her life we meet her crappy roommate we see her at her crappy waitressing job with her crappy boss a couple times during her waitressing shift she thinks she sees her sister and it like freaks her out a little bit because she hasn't talked to her sister in three years so what's that about and then her phone starts going off and like the manager is yelling at her customers are annoyed but her mom just called her seven times in a row so it has to be an emergency and she answers the phone and she learns that her sister is dead next chapter younger sister is shook if a manager says she doesn't have to finish her shift so she's heading home she's on the bus the subway maybe I don't know and she looks next to her and there is her sister as a ghost looking really pissed off and asking like can you hear me now younger sister of course freaks out she thinks she's hallucinating like of course no one else on the bus can see the older sister the sisters discussed the situation and try to figure out what the hell's going on older sister says she can't leave like she tries to get away from younger sister but when she moves too far away her arm starts to burn her tattoo starts to burn the sisters kind of piece it together that somehow through their tattoos they are psychically bound the next chapter would be the longer-term reaction / rebellion chapter this is the part where younger sister tries to do anything she can to get rid of ghost sister she tries to literally outrun her maybe she goes down to the local occult shop and demands answers and gets kicked out for being a punk-ass troll and not taking their work seriously no it's not a prank my tattoo is really haunted I swear of course none of this works it is not going to be that easy to get rid of ghost sister and maybe ghost sister even tries to argue that like just like she keeps telling her younger sister none of this is gonna work younger sister is like fine what's your brilliant idea vent so ghost sister suggests that younger sister has to finish her project the next chapter is an action chapter so we'll have the younger sister like going to the lab and demanding entry maybe she sneaks in and like tries to secretly work on her sister's project and then she's told like no you can't be here unless you pass our very elite admissions test so chapter six is the consequence to this now the younger sister has to study and prepare for this test and interview and also the sisters have to spend time together which is not a good idea because they don't get along so they're constantly bickering while they're trying to like work together maybe younger sister's life and job are being negatively affected by all this like maybe the boss cut back her days and her shifts and now she might not make rent she can't focus on her waitressing job when she needs to be like studying so she can pass this admissions test and get rid of her sister's ghost and this is just about the part where I could start drafting like I do need a little bit more time to answer a few big questions like what are their names what point of view what tense am I going to write in I should probably figure out like what the tattoo is and what's the story behind the sisters getting matching tattoos and then having a falling out I also need to develop the other characters who are working in the lab and also I need to figure out what exactly is the sisters project like what is she working on what is this competition I need to figure out that part as well but once I do a little more developmental work and I can answer these questions then it's on its drafting time all right I think that is gonna be it for this video there's a lot more that I could say because I just love a story structure so much I could talk about this for hours but yeah maybe I'll make more videos about the development of this story this idea if you guys would be into that let me know in the comments below and maybe give me a thumbs up too while you're down there but yeah that is it so thank you for watching I will see you in my next video bye

Channel: Katytastic

Views: 212,299

Rating: 4.9700537 out of 5

Keywords: books, booktube, reading, book tag, book haul, literary, writing, writer, author, katytastic, 3 act structure, 3 act outline, outline example, how to outline, 3 act 9 block 27 chapter, 9 block outline, 27 chapter outline, katytastic outlining, katytastic writing, how i outline, outline a novel, novel outline example, outlining a book, story structure, three act structure, how to outline a book, writing advice, writing tips, authortube

Id: fe3eodLF_Uo

Length: 17min 47sec (1067 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 01 2018