1 framework to outline your first story
How to quickly write stories without wasting time
I have spent hours writing a story, only to find that it was going nowhere.
I have pages and pages of exposition, world building, yet there is no conflict, no rising tension. Has this ever happened to you?
There is a faster way to write stories: by using an outline. An outline is the single most powerful tool for quickly producing high quality stories.
In her book Take Off Your Pants, successful fiction and non-fiction author Libbie Hawker provides a framework for writing effective outline for fiction stories.
The framework is simple and easy to implement, focusing only on the most foundational aspects of stories while leaving room to fill in the rest later as you are writing.
If you are tired of wasting time on stories that go nowhere and find your work isn't escalating, this framework is for you.
The three-legged footstool of story
Have you ever read something and thought "OK, but where are you going with this?"
In order for the reader to feel like a particular scene belongs in a story comes down to whether it feels connected to the core of the story. The three-legged footstool is an analogy for the three pillars that support a story. Without one the story falls over, to a reader it will seem like something is missing.
Every scene in your story is built brick-by-brick from these three pillars.
Character
No matter the genre, character arcs are the most important part of any story.
The central catharsis of reading a story comes from experiencing a change through the lens of a character. We want to experience loss through the character, share their victories and wins.
Good characters pull us into a story and make us excited to see what happens. Flat two-dimensional characters make a reader disengaged. The reader won’t care about your story if they are not invested in your characters.
Theme
The theme is what your story is about, where the meaning lies.
For example, the Lord of the Flies is a book about human nature in the absence of civilization. The theme elevates it above a story about boys fighting. The most common reason a scene feels out of place in a story is either because it does not advance a character's arc or it is not related to the theme.
Figuring out your theme will take some time, so don't worry if you don't have it figured out until after the first or second draft.
Pacing
Good pacing is the number one thing that keeps a reader moving forward.
You can be a clumsy writer but if you nail pacing you can still be a bestseller (see: The Da Vinci Code). Pacing comes down to building Freytag's Pyramids at every level of story. Meaning that the global story needs to have a pyramid, and so does an act, a character arc, a chapter, and a scene.
This is one of the hardest things to master but will give you the most dividends.
If a scene is missing any of these three pillars it will not work.
When editing your work, do a pass for theme, pacing, and character. For example, when doing a theme pass ask yourself if the scene elaborates on your theme in a way that makes it more complex. If not, consider cutting it.
I am thinking about writing in greater detail about the story core for a character's arc and pacing for my next post. I think it would be cool to provide a template of an outline for people to use. What do you think?