Outlining is daydreaming on paper

How I get ready to write a story

Jordan Ecarma

Oct 14, 2021

Credit: Square Enix/Final Fantasy XIV/W’s many hours of gameplay to get the hero to this point

The hero's journey.

Save the cat.

Pantsing vs. Plotting. Themes. Beats.

In today’s newsletter about creating stories, I’m sharing how I prepare to write a story.

My story prep process varies depending on length because preparing to write a short story isn’t as involved as preparing to write a novel-length manuscript, but the core approach is the same, whether I’m aiming to write 5,000 words or 75,000 words.

Writers have come up with a lot of terms to try to explain their writing process. The two key terms we’ll talk about today are plotting and pantsing.

In case you haven’t heard of “pantsing” before, I’ll explain: The writing community has a longstanding friendly disagreement about the best way to write a fictional story. Writers generally fall into either of two camps: the plotters/planners (writers who plan their stories in advance) and the pantsers (writers who write “by the seat of their pants” and don’t plan anything before coming to the page).

I need to know the beginning of the story, the end of the story, and the breaking point that happens somewhere in between the two before I start trying to capture the thing in my head in full sentences.

That’s right … I’m a planner and an outliner. It’s the BEST.

BOILERPLATE DISCLAIMER: As the saying goes, there are as many ways to write a story as there are writers. In this newsletter, I’m sharing one (mine) with you.

It starts with an idea.

an image I see in real life or envision in my head
a situation that I could see being the starting point for a good story
a character or perhaps, an interaction between two characters
a scrap of dialogue, maybe one or two lines
an emotional moment inspired by a song I love that becomes a fictional character’s struggle

As you can see, the starting point “idea” is ephemeral. Sometimes, if I’m very, very lucky, the idea comes as a full-fledged scene where a character says things and makes decisions and gives me an idea of where the story is going. (This rarely happens.)

We’ve talked a lot about gathering creative fodder and I’m sure we’ll revisit that aspect of the creative life again in the future. What I want to share in this newsletter is how I get from the stage of gathering creative fodder and ideas to the stage of being ready to write a story sparked by those ideas.

Save the Cat!

I used to think that simply having an Idea for a novel was enough. For years, I thought that one day I would be magically hit with a great idea and I would sit down and write it in its completed form and it would be A Book. I’ve read thousands of books in my lifetime, and yet, I had a very hazy idea of what a novel actually was and how it came to exist on the page.

About three years ago, I started writing something. I had an idea jotted down in a notebook, and thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, I knew it was time to stop waiting on it. I wrote what amounted to around 42,000 words of (very, very, very bad) fiction.

I knew there was something missing, but I wasn’t sure what it was … until I found Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody, a novelist’s handbook that uses Blake Snyder’s screenwriting approach as a framework for novelists.

I heard about Brody’s book in an episode of the podcast Write-Minded. If you’re interested in writing a novel, I can’t recommend this handbook enough. If you’re just here for the stories, I think researching Snyder’s 15 beats is still valuable. I’ve watched movies and read books with new eyes ever since I realized that most of the movies we watch and the novels we read have the same underlying story structure.

For example: If you watched Parasite, Joker, Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story to prepare for the Oscars two years ago, every one of those very different movies follows this 15-beat framework. Every movie (or book) can be unique while still following the same exact beats because humans are wired to recognize and respond to the natural rhythm of story.

I found this writer’s manual at the perfect moment, while I was daydreaming about writing my first novel. I was noodling around with an outlining process, but Save the Cat! made everything fall into place. If you want to know what that felt like — imagine starting to sift through a bag of puzzle pieces and then being handed the lid to the box with the complete picture. Yep. AMAZING.

(I’ve gleaned insights from many writers in the last few years, and if you’re interested in more resources, I’ll have a list at the end of this newsletter. From here on, we’ll talk about my personal approach to outlining a story.)

1. Catching the first idea

When an idea wanders my way, I usually do one of three things:

I jot down the idea in my “ideas notebook” (literally a physical notebook with random scribbled ideas that I may or may not ever come back to in the future).

What this means for me: This idea is fun creative fodder, but I don’t have a specific plan to use it. I scribble it into a notebook for “someday” when I’m looking for ideas of what to write. I don’t want to forget it, but I don’t need to keep it close by.

I write the idea in my current working notebook to return to either later that day or that week, or I grab my phone to capture it in Evernote.

What this means for me: I’m excited about this idea, and either I want to figure out a plan to work on it soon, or I think it may fit with another concept that’s been percolating in my brain (an idea that connects to another idea, if that makes sense) and have the potential to grow into a story. I want to make sure I look at it again soon.

I do nothing.

What this means for me: This idea is too big / too delicate / too ephemeral to touch in any way yet, even to write it down. I need to let it keep forming in my mind before I do anything.

2. Collecting enough ideas for a story

In my Choose Your Own Adventure of outlining to prepare for a story, 2 is the first step: Scribble down that idea and keep it close by. But a story is made up of lots of ideas: plot, setting, characters, twists, concepts, themes. Whether or not you follow the exact 15 beats of Save the Cat!, you need to know the rise and fall of the story. Why does it start where you’re beginning? Why is its ending the inevitable place for it to stop?

If I know I want to take that first seed of an idea and grow it into something that’s short story-sized or novel-sized, then I start collecting more and more ideas. Typically, I have an Evernote for daily scribbled ideas that I can capture quickly wherever I am, and I also have a Word document where everything gets collected and semi-organized in one place.

I love this before-actually-writing phase of a story. I’m daydreaming about the characters and what decisions they’ll make and how they’ll grow over the narrative. I’m thinking about the new world I’ll create, and I’m preparing to live it in for anywhere from 5,000 to 70,000 or more words.

I also love this phase because it doesn’t necessarily have a timeline. The story is growing in my mind, but I haven’t yet embarked on the real work of writing it. This stage can last for a few weeks or a few months or even years if it’s not the right time yet. Every writer is different, but for me, it’s not a good idea to write a story in full sentences until I know the beginning and the end and at least have a hazy idea of what happens in between.

A story isn’t plot or setting or character or concept or anything else. I heard once that story is change, and I think that’s the best definition. Before I write a story, I need to know how the characters will change. If I don’t know that yet, then I don’t have a story.

Knowing my beginning and ending anchors me in the story’s world. Plus, I need to have the inevitable conclusion in sight to hold my own interest in the story — if I’m just meandering along with no idea where it’s going, my energy for it peters out. I’ve taken two passes at a short story idea in the last couple of years that I haven’t yet cracked, and I think it’s been a struggle because I started writing it before I knew how it would end.

An important caveat: If anything comes to me clearly and effortlessly, I write it down. It could be a line that a character says, or full sentences of the story/novel, or a nearly complete scene. For whatever reason, I always write the two or three sentences that will be the end of a novel manuscript before I actually sit down to write the whole thing. It’s not intentional; it just happens. If your creative instinct is telling you to write something down and it magically appears on the page in front of you, that’s great. Follow that instinct. This in-between step to collect ideas isn’t about restricting your creativity, it’s about not forcing yourself to put in the hard work of writing before you’re ready. But if something isn’t work? if it’s just a cool thing that appears fully formed in your creative mind, there for the taking? … Write. It. Down.

3. Daydreaming on paper

At some point, I’ll reach a place where I’ve gathered enough ideas for a story and I’m ready for outlining.

Here’s where the creative process is a little mystical. Only you can know when you’re ready for this step.

In my experience, short stories are both harder and easier to write than novels. They’re harder because short stories for me involve some kind of writerly magic where they either happen to me and I write them down very quickly, or they don’t happen at all. Someday, I hope to be able to direct the process a little more, but I’m not there yet. But when it comes to outlining, short stories are easier because I don’t need all 15 beats in place to start. As long as I know the beginning, the end, and the crisis point somewhere in between that changes the character for better or worse, then I’m ready to write the story.

Learn More about People Who Like Things

A novel’s outlining process is more involved because I’m preparing a road map that needs to be accurate enough to guide me through writing tens of thousands of words. For me, “ready to write” means …

I have a concrete idea of the beginning, middle and end of the story,
I know both who the main character is and how she will change over the course of that novel,
and I have my 15 beats in place, plus a chapter-level outline to get the scenes happening in my head on paper in an order that makes sense.

This step is a continuation of the daydreaming I did in Step 2, but it involves a lot more structure. Here are some distinctions between the two:

For the daydreaming phase, I scribble down ideas as they come.

For the outlining phase, I set aside specific time to think through my story and fit those ideas into the 15-beat structure.

For the daydreaming phase, I’m not focused on specific parts of the story. It’s more about discovering why I’m excited for this story and getting down the “feel”of it.

For the outlining phase, I’m ready to give my story a strong foundation. I outline by beats, and then by chapter and scene. Every scene needs to be in the story for a reason.

I love the outlining phase because I get to play around with the story and characters and discover things about this new world I’m creating … with no consequences whatsoever. If I realize a side character is unnecessary or the midpoint isn’t big enough or a plot twist just doesn’t feel right during the outlining phase, I can easily change it on my outline.

I don’t have to throw out thousands of words that took time and energy to write. Everything is movable and fixable in this magical phase where I’m daydreaming through my story.

(For the record, my outline doesn’t lock me into anything during the writing process itself, either. Usually, the last 20,000 words or so tend to stray outside the chapter designations and wander into scenes I never expected to be there. But because I have my map in hand, I always know how to get back on the path.)

Step 1: First idea
Step 2: Putting enough ideas together for a story
Step 3: Fitting those ideas into a beat sheet and chapter outline

As you can see, these are pretty simple steps. “Outlining” sounds intimidating, until you realize it’s just daydreaming on paper. It’s about giving your present creative self total freedom to play with ideas and preparing a trustworthy roadmap so your future creative self can know there’s a way out of the story forest to that fulfilling ending.