Monday, April 25, 2011

The Road to "The 10,000 Word Novel Outline"

Well, as this whole novel planning thing unfolds, I'm coming up with an outline for my outline almost. What to outline. A process for it all. And my goal is to have a 10,000 word outline.
That number may change as I finish the outline and all the things I want to do. See how much I want to go in depth of the novel before I actually write it.

So far, these are the things I have written or will have written when I finish. I'm sure that this will change dramatically as I continually plan for this novel. I actually have no idea if this outline will even reach 10,000 words. It might. It depends on how many characters and places that the novel will include. I should probably come up with a different name for it, but for now:

The 10,000 Word Novel Outline: "Draft 1"

Character:
  • 1 sentence description (must be 20 words or less) and motivation for every character ever mentioned
  • physical description for every character mentioned
  • names for every character
  • paragraph descriptions for characters that affect the plot
Setting:
  • list (and organize by city in my case) every place that shows up in plot (I wrote scene list first...)
  • 1 sentence description of setting (20 words or less)
  • 5 senses list for each setting
Plot:
List every scene that will happen in the novel:
  • side notes of what is happening in other parts of the world if important to know
  • characters involved in each scene
  • place the scene takes place
  • 1 sentence description of the scene (still 20 words or less)
  • notes of quotes, descriptions, etc. that should be included in the scene
  • divide into chapters if you want
So, what do you think? Anything you would add? Any huge part of a story I'm missing in the outline?

1 comment:

  1. I personally find that wirintg up a page or so, telling the whole story through one characters view, then repeating for the others, really helps. Otherwise, that sounds great!

    Mars

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