What's up my friend, Abbie here and welcome
back to Writer's Life Wednesdays. What the heck, it's another month, again,
that means I'm kicking off a new series on this channel. It's going to be all about outlining a riveting
novel. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to
be revealing my outlining process start to finish, and basically how I take a messy story
idea or plot bunny if you will, and turn it into a roadmap that is easy to follow. Basically a game plan that will turn my messy
ideas and make them into a coherent and riveting novel that people will fall in love with. Now its important to remember that your outline
is your road map of character arcs and your character arcs are basically your story, because,
you've heard me say this a lot, story is not about what happens, it's about how what happens
affects and transforms the characters. So the characters are at the heart of everything. Which is why we're going internal with this
outlining method, not so much what happens, although it will include that, it's mainly
going to take what happens and make it significant to the characters so that the reader cares. So we're not just outlining what happens here,
we're outlining why it matters and how it affects and transforms the characters. If you know me at all, you know I am a plotter,
not a pantser, I gravitate towards knowing exactly where I'm going and exactly why. Before I write a novel, I usually write a
15 to 20,000 word outline of everything that happens in the story, plus I also write scene
cards for pretty much every single scene. I know, I'm a little crazy, but this is what
works for me. But don't freak out, this series is not going
to be about how I like write a detailed synopsis or anything like that, because I realize that
might not be your thing. This is going to be about outlining a novel
using a tried and true brilliant method that is the three act story structure. You might have hear of the three act story
structure before and if you have and you don't like, or you don't like the sound of it, please
hear me out. Because I didn't like it when I first discovered
it. But that was because I didn't really understand
it and I didn't see the reason why you should abide by some constricting structure to write
your story. I mean writing is an art right, and there's
no right or wrong to do that, correct? Well, yes and no. You're free to write however you want to,
create however you want to, but to me, there's two types of creation. Creating for yourself, and creating for others. When you create for others, you're still creating
something from your heart, but you're looking at it from their perspective. You're keeping them in mind. You're thinking, "What is going to interest
them and engage them about my thing? How am I going to make them care about my
thing?" When you're creating for others, you're not
bastardizing your art, but you want other people to fall in love with it. When you create for yourself, you couldn't
care less. I mean, you want your art to be good, great
even, but if nobody likes it, you don't care. It's just there to make you happy. You create it because it makes you happy,
the finished product makes you happy, and if someone else likes it, their like is just
extra. Now I'm not saying you can't have it both
ways. I believe that you truly can create for yourself
and others at the same time, because you're in love with what you're doing, but you also
have this goal of you want other people to be in love with it to. You know what I mean? So there are some things that I create just
for myself, such as my music. A lot of people don't know this, but I am
also a musician. I create and mix and record my own music and
I know that it's a little weird, and my voice will never be technically perfect, but it
makes me happy and I literally don't care if anybody else likes it. But with writing it's a different story. No pun intended. Ha ha, groan. Now you might be that way with writing, like
I am with my music. You just like writing, you don't care if anybody
likes it, you have your own style, your own way of doing things and that's fine because
you literally don't care if anybody else likes it or gets anything out of it. That's cool. Do your thing. But see, when I create a story, it's not about
my flair or my style, it's about the reader. I want to touch the reader with something,
I want to give them something. So when I go about writing a novel, I want
to craft it in such a way that the reader can get the absolute most out of it. So if you're like me with writing, you want
to do the same thing. You want to create a story that cuts right
to the heart, that impacts your readers, that makes them fall in love with this story. And if you don't even know where to begin
with this monumental task, that's where story structure comes in. I know, it doesn't sound very exciting, but
trust me, it is so exciting. So when I first discovered the three act story
structure, I was like, "Really? Structure sounds so rigid and predictable. How do I know it even works?" Well, what convinced me in the end is just
noticing the story structures of stories that I really, really, really love. I urge you to do this, next time you watch
a movie or read a book that was just amazing, you like, "Ah, that was so, so good." Don't just sit there and marvel about it,
like if it's some freak of nature. It's not some miraculous thing, okay? It has a science behind it. Everything has a science behind it. And in this case we're talking about brain
science. What captures the attention and just plays
on simple psychology. So I started doing this, I started taking
my favorite books and TV shows and movies and just psychoanalyzed them, and drew graphs
and took notes and studied the crap out of them and I started to notice something revolutionizing. They all followed the same basic structure. The three act story structure. So before we go any deeper into this, I just
want to give you a quick look, I feel like I've been talking forever. So before we go any deeper into this, I just
want to quickly show you the three act story structure, what it looks, at a glance, here
it is. So obviously you have the three acts. The beginning, the middle, and the end. Act One, Act Two, and Act Three. Otherwise known as the set up, the confrontation
and the resolution. In Act One, the beginning of the story we
have the hook, the set up, the inciting incident, the build up, and the first plot point, and
the first pinch point. In Act Two, the middle of your story, we have
the pre-midpoint reactionary hero, the game changing midpoint or plot twist, post-midpoint
action hero and the second pinch point. In Act Three, the final act, or the climax
of your story, we have supposed victory, disaster, dark moment, recovery, climactic confrontation,
victory and the end, end resolution. Now I know I just flew right through that,
and that's because we're going to talk about it more in depth of course, but I just wanted
you to get the general idea. This is not something that I made up, obviously. It is a popular, widely used story structure,
that a lot of really brilliant, best-selling, amazing, just go-down-in-history books and
stories and movies and TV shows follow. Now I know what you might be thinking. Isn't this too predictable? That's what I was worried about when I first
heard about story structure. Like, if we know how they go, and we know
that this story is following the story structure, then won't we be able to just guess everything
that's going to happen? And therefore lose interest in the story? Short answer, no. Long answer, just think about it for a minute. Hundreds of, probably thousands, probably
even, maybe even millions, of stories have followed this story structure and garnered
fans from all walks of life, all ages. Why? Because it's not so much a question of what's
going to happen. It's a question of how is it going to happen? When your protagonist majorly messes everything
up, most people who are reading your book, aren't going to be like, "I wonder if he's
going to come to his senses and fix things?" More likely, they're thinking, "How is he
going to come to his senses, and fix things?" We can often predict the ending of stories,
right? When we watch a movie and we're like, "I know
this has a happy ending." We say that. But in the middle of the story's conflict,
you can't see how this mess is going to turn into a happily ever after. You just know it's going to be happily ever
after. And that does not take the surprise or intrigue
out of it. Because you don't know how it's going to end
up being a happily ever after. That's where the intrigue comes in, that's
what keeps us up past our bedtime. Now I don't know about you, but I'm a very
visual person, I have to see exactly how my story's laid out and where it's going to go,
what direction it's going to take before I feel comfortable sitting down and writing
it. Now I realize that might be a pantser, and
you might not like outlining, you might just like flying by the seat of your pants and
just doing whatever makes sense at the time, making it up as you go. Or re-writing and fixing the whole story when
it comes time to write your second draft. But I outline so that I don't have to write
a second draft, okay? I never write a second draft, because before
I write my first draft, I pretty much perfected everything about the story before I write
one word of the story. Now obviously, this is just my crazy, hyper
organized way of doing things and I understand if you don't like doing that, but I do recommend,
even if you're a pantser, that you make a teensy, tiny outline, because it's going to
help you so, so much. I like to call it minimalist outlining, so
not outlining for minimalists, but if you're a minimalist that's cool too. But I'm talking about outlining just enough
so that you're not questioning yourself every two minutes, wondering if your book is absolute
garbage. You'll know it's a good story, and that will
give you the confidence to write me. to me, for me, when I outline, it's just about
knowing where I'm going and also giving myself the confidence to write the story because
I know it's good. You won't be overwhelmed and constricted,
but you also won't be doubting yourself and your story and you will never, ever have writers
block. You ready for this? Me too. Now I've been talking for way too long no,
so I'm going to stop here and next week, we're going to really get this party started and
kick off this whole series, and I'm going to take you on a deep dive into writing outlining. Not writing yet, outlining, your riveting
novel. So episode one is going to be all about Act
One, the beginning, the most crucial part of your story, because this is where you make
the reader care, and pull them in for the rest of the ride. I'm also going to debunk a common myth that
most writers have about the inciting incident and reveal the one thing that makes most novel
openings crash and burn before they even get started. Hint, it's a super easy thing to avoid if
you know what it is, and I'm going to tell you what it is in next week's video. Episode two is going to be all about Act Two,
the middle ground of your story. A lot of writers struggle with this part of
the story, because obviously your goal is to keep the reader interested and engaged,
but how do you do that exactly? And how do you craft the perfect plot twist
that will surprise your readers and addict them to the rest of the story. That's what we'll be discussing in episode
two. And finally the last act, the climax of your
story. In this third and final video, I'm going to
show you how to craft an emotional rollercoaster of a crescendo that's unique to your story,
but moving to anyone who reads it. I'm also going to show you how to focus on
the internal and emotional battle of your characters so that you can have this climactic
confrontation in your story, even if you write something like contemporary and there's not
a lot of action and adventure going on. Remember that every story, regardless of genre,
has to connect with the internal journey of your characters in order to make the reader
care. We'll talk about exactly how to do that in
Act Three of your story in this video. So if you want in on this whole series, make
sure you're subscribed to this channel, it is going to be good, my friend. I've been actually planning this series for
a long, long time, so I'm very excited to show you all the gold in this outlining method
so that you can make your story the best it can possibly be. Okay, that's it for me. If you're excited for this series, please
smash that like button to let me know. Also, comment below and tell me do you use
the three act story structure, have you used it for a long time, are you a plotter, or
are you a pantser or a minimalist outliner, I'm going to make you a minimalist outliner
whether you like it or not. Are you excited for this series because I
certainly am. Also if you're watching this in the future,
I will have already finished posting this series, and the links to all the videos will
be in the description box below. If you're watching this in real time, then
you'll just have to wait. Until next week, my friend. Rock on.
