That having been said, I have a question: How do I outline a story? I know that's a very broad question, with many possible answers, but I'm very frustrated with my inability to read into the future of my characters (if that makes any sense) and I think outlining might be the answer. If it's not, say so. If it is, I'd be willing to read as many different opinions as it takes. I've been stuck on Ch. 12 of my story for about a month, and I've a complete writer's block when it comes to that story. And any other story I might be working on, for that matter.

Whenever you come up with an idea for a character or plot point, ask yourself what else could have happened, or what else could happen. It's kinda like brainstorming, but more focused.

Often first ideas aren't the best ideas, only the most comfortable, or most cliche. If you ask yourself "else" questions, you often generate more original ideas.

Outlining for me relies a lot on that. Though I don't actually outline on paper, instead hashing things out in my head, I constantly ask what else could happen, complicating the world. That way, I don't write myself into cliched corners, or get stuck with a character being forced to act "out of character" to get out of a situation (aka copping out).

Listing out the chronology of events in your head, ask what else could happen at each step. "The character fled upstairs"... ask where else could he have run? To the basement? Out the back door? To the kitchen? To the den? Why would he have gone these other places? If he ran to the kitchen instead, there are all kinds of weapons and whatnot there (knives, heavy pots and pans, maybe boiling water, or even a broomhandle)

Each "else" question you ask, prompts more, and your outline becomes more interesting. If he grabbed the pot of boiling water, how does he use it, other than simply dumping it on his puruer? What else? Does he threaten with it? Try to calm his pursuer down, or psyche him out? Is he trying to figure out why he's being pursued?

Keep asking questions, and you really refine your outline, and advance the plot. Write down or remember your various answers, and you have your outline. Complete with character sketches, and a better understanding of how your character thinks, and what choices he makes.

Just my thoughts. Picking up OSC's Characters and Viewpoint might help, too. It gives great insight to understanding what kind of story and characters you are writing, and with greater understanding comes a better grasp on your outline. There are other useful questions he lists, that you can apply to every situation.

What made this happen? What is the purpose? What is the result?

What can go wrong? Who suffers most in this situation?

Anyway, those are just my thoughts. I don't like outlines, particularly, since I tend to lock myself into them, and it stifles my story options. To each his or her own, though.

In all the how to books that I own I don't have one that explains how to outline a story before hand. Not the sort of outline I had pictured in my head. Story sketch fits almost better and dispels the old number and letters outline idea.

The closest I come to and outline is to take my idea and put in a circle in the middle of a big white board (dry erase) that I have. I then draw circles out from that. I ask myself questions like those posted in the previous post.

If I am stuck---I back up a chapter or a scene or two from where I was and put the last major story event in a circle and brain storm about where it could go--one circle connected would be the direction that got me stuck, but often times this helps me see where I could go to get unstuck. I copy down the main idea and then write out the best ideas for each chapter under it---that's all the outline I have ever done.

I've done a after the finish one--that sucks!

Start writing. Don't think "What I'm I going to write?" before you put your hands on the keyboard. Just start writing, following your main character. Where are they now? Here. What do they want to do? That. They start going to "that". How can they reach their objective? One, two, three, four solutions? Choose the one your characters would logicaly follow, according to his/her personality.

But don't think about it before you start writing.

Or: have your characters think what to do, and write his/her toughts. They will lead you somewhere, definately!

First take a lot of simple story ideas that you have thought of or are interested in, and reduce them to short paragraph summaries that state the essential dramatic elements of the story. This might include a one sentance description of the protagonist, basic conflict, climactic resolution, and aftermath, along with a few sentances describing auxiliary dramatic elements particular to each story. You can leave out any reference to milieu or genre in composing them, so as to facilitate the next step.

After you have a number of these, see if you can group them by basic similarities in the protagonist, then take the largest group and order the stories by logical progression whereby the aftermath of one leads to the protagonist, conflict, or climactic resolution of another. For instance, a story in which a young warrior comes of age as, say, a knight could be tied to a story in which the initial character is a knight, or in which a knight is needed to assist in resolving the conflict experienced by another character.

When you have a story tree put together, start looking at the overall shape of the story that is being told, then choose a genre and milieu that fits, and go back and prune out stories that no longer seem to fit into the overall work. If you find loose threads in the work at this point, you can go back to brainstorming as above to generate action to connect to those story threads.

Most of the time, this process will be quite informal, in that you won't actually be generating a paper trail, but it can be a useful exercise to actually carry out with 3x5 cards (do they even use those nowadays?) or in a notebook.

There are some points that you should remember.

Keep all the 'mini-stories' at the same scale, and make sure that scale fits into the larger narrative that you are generating. If most of your elements are on the level of "Hero is in basement, needs to get to second floor. Finds ladder, climbs it to arrive breathless but triumphant through second story window," then you shouldn't throw in an element that is much larger such as "Hero is uneducated youth, needs to learn magic to claim birthright, studies for many years and passes life or death final exam to become high sorcerer." son should you do the reverse. Also, if you compose a group of elements on the scale of the second, but only want to write about a one month period in your finished work, there is not going to be room for any of the elements except as backstory.

Make extra sure that you find the larger theme of the entire story, and include elements that serve that larger purpose. If the central conflict of the work as a whole is about saving the hero's land from enslavement, a line of elements where he does little but solve riddles and throw parties might need to be justified. Conversely, if the central conflict was about being more popular at school, then a line of elements where the character faces death would need to be connected to that conflict. Note that elements can advance or retard the progress of the story towards a resolution, just as long as they matter to the central conflict.

I'll offer another thing you can try, just in case none of these work.

Get out a how-to-write book, one you've read before, or one you haven't, and start reading. Let yourself think about how you can apply the suggestions in the book to your story. Once you find yourself thinking about your story and not paying attention to what is written on the page in front of you, put down the book and go write.

Another possibility (sort of an addition to Bardos' suggestion) might be to put on some appropriate music (instrumental may be best, but I have actually gotten interesting ideas when my daughter has had Indigo Girls playing on the car radio, so vocal music may work, too), and really get into it as you just write, write, write.

What Bardos said I think would be most useful for character stories (or perhaps other kinds), but for my novel, which was heavily an event-driven one, I had to plan and structure it all first.

One of the things I did which helped clarify everything in my mind was doing a 'necessary/consequences' outline. By this I mean write down the major event of the story, then write down all the things that are directly necessary for, and all the things that are consequences of that event. For example using LotR, the event: Defeat Sauron. Necessary: destroy the ring. Consequences: end of the age, loss of power to three elven rings.
Then I did the same for each of the 'sub-events'.
Destroy the ring: Necessary: 1) bring the ring to mount doom, 2) divert Sauron's attention to war with Gondor (necessary: Fellowship must split up, etc.) consequences:...

Do this until every entry has been tracked from its most immediate cause/effect to its ultimate cause (convergence of causes) and final effects.

Doing this seemed to make the whole thing more consistent and believable in my mind.
Although I'm sure there are those readers that have had their fill of 'perfect, wrap-it-and-set-it-on-a-shelf' stories, which this excercise might tend to create.

Erk

Sorry about poor explanation. If I have time, I could clarify later.

My outline is mostly a just a list of mnemonics that remind me of what the scene I envisioned was about, but there is no way I would have ever gotten close (and I'm so close now) to finishing my novel if I hadn't had the outline as a tool.

Just my 2 cents,

If you think in circles, use a web, or concept map.

I create two columns. One column is the character I’m working on. The other is the rest of the world.

Let’s say something occurs that affects the character. I write that event down in the Rest of the World column. Then I draw a diagonal arrow to the character column. There, I write down how the character reacts to this event.

Then I draw another diagonal arrow back to the Rest of the World, and write down how the world (other characters, society, nature, whatever) reacts to the character’s reaction. Then I write down how the character reacts to the World’s reaction. I keep repeating this until the story is resolved.

If you think in circles, use a web, or concept map.