Hi! First off, I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to respond. Work took me out back and buried me, and I just haven't been online much.
I completely understand what you mean about choice paralysis. I have an embarrassing number of unfinished stories on my hard drive (as in, over a hundred) and a good portion of those are unfinished because I couldn’t make a very minor choice and simply stalled out. I find outlining helps me a lot on that front. I rarely start writing even a very short story these days without sketching it out from beginning to end. Making decisions early on in point form, before I’ve invested the time and energy of real prose, makes it easier for me to experiment with different choices until I find something that feels right. It’s easier to cut scenes or move them around when they’re just very short notes instead of full descriptions.
Theme and emotional arcs are a huge part of the outlining process for me. When I first get an idea for a story, it’s usually just a small element: a scene, a line of dialogue, or an image. My next step is to think about what sort of theme that could relate to. This is mostly done in the shower in the mornings or on my daily commute. I then usually spend a little time going back and forth in my head, sort of negotiating between the “what” and the “why”. More scenes develop based on my initial theme, and in turn the theme might shift or grow to accommodate the new scenes. It’s only when I feel confident about the theme that I start putting words down on paper.
If it’s going to be a longer story, that’s where I’ll start mapping out character arcs. The point form of what happens in the story will be accompanied with notes about where the character is at emotionally in those scenes. Having this down in an outline gives me a sort of bird’s-eye-view of the whole story and whether the emotional beats are spaced out in a way that makes sense (and by “makes sense” I mean whether they resemble the pacing and pattern in other things I’ve read and enjoyed). I’ll usually start with the beginning and the end - who the character is at the start and where I want them to be at the finish. Then I think about where that state would pivot. Would it be one dramatic thing that makes them change (a big blow-up argument or a near-death experience) or would it be a lot of small things that build up gradually (a series of kindnesses that lead to acceptance), or some combination of the two? Who or what prompts these moments and how can I weave them into the story? Are they primarily internal or external? What sort of feelings are accompanying the change, and how does that relate to what we know about the character - is some empty part of them being filled or an old wound being poked, is this an intellectual or emotional reaction, are they acting out of principle or out of spite? Thinking about these questions usually helps me narrow down the options for how the character could get from point A to point B and which of these options would be the most interesting to read and write about.
For instance, I’m working on a long project that has me making a lot of notes about a character’s arc. I know that the main theme is Identity, with three related sub-themes: Masculinity, Adulthood, and Family. I know that the character starts out secure in his family role but trying to “be a man” in a way that isn’t right for him. I know that at the end he’s found his own model of masculinity and adulthood and has redefined his role in the family based on this.
To help me figure out how to get him from here to there, I first sketched out the early scenes where he’s unfulfilled, then the last scenes where he’s succeeded. I brainstormed some midpoints - places where he was starting to get things right, but not quite - and put them in the middle to see how that flowed and where the gaps still were. I then made a list of all the other characters in the story and assigned them to one or more of the three sub-themes. (ex. His mother is Family, his boss is Adulthood, his uncle is Masculinity, his love interest is a support for all three and his brothers are foils for all three.) That solved a lot of problems, because then I just had to make sure that whatever scene the protagonist had with one of those characters was moving that sub-theme along.
While I have a theme in mind for every story I write, emotional arcs are a bit more opt-in for me. This is because I pretty much only write fanfiction, where canon is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. I think you don’t always have to write out a whole emotional arc with fanfic, because people are bringing all their canon knowledge to the story when they read it, and your words are existing within or adjacent to the canon arc. A few light references or allusions and the reader builds bridges all on their own.
I don’t know if this is helpful at all. I’d be happy to try to drill down more on any of these ideas if they’re not making sense. If you let me know which of my stories you’ve read, I could probably pull some examples of how I went about writing it, and might even still have copies of my notes.
Now, plot. I’m terrible at plot. Can’t do it. Can’t think my way through it. It does not come naturally to me at all. I would love to hear about how you approach it. Any tricks and tips you could share with me?
no subject
I completely understand what you mean about choice paralysis. I have an embarrassing number of unfinished stories on my hard drive (as in, over a hundred) and a good portion of those are unfinished because I couldn’t make a very minor choice and simply stalled out. I find outlining helps me a lot on that front. I rarely start writing even a very short story these days without sketching it out from beginning to end. Making decisions early on in point form, before I’ve invested the time and energy of real prose, makes it easier for me to experiment with different choices until I find something that feels right. It’s easier to cut scenes or move them around when they’re just very short notes instead of full descriptions.
Theme and emotional arcs are a huge part of the outlining process for me. When I first get an idea for a story, it’s usually just a small element: a scene, a line of dialogue, or an image. My next step is to think about what sort of theme that could relate to. This is mostly done in the shower in the mornings or on my daily commute. I then usually spend a little time going back and forth in my head, sort of negotiating between the “what” and the “why”. More scenes develop based on my initial theme, and in turn the theme might shift or grow to accommodate the new scenes. It’s only when I feel confident about the theme that I start putting words down on paper.
If it’s going to be a longer story, that’s where I’ll start mapping out character arcs. The point form of what happens in the story will be accompanied with notes about where the character is at emotionally in those scenes. Having this down in an outline gives me a sort of bird’s-eye-view of the whole story and whether the emotional beats are spaced out in a way that makes sense (and by “makes sense” I mean whether they resemble the pacing and pattern in other things I’ve read and enjoyed). I’ll usually start with the beginning and the end - who the character is at the start and where I want them to be at the finish. Then I think about where that state would pivot. Would it be one dramatic thing that makes them change (a big blow-up argument or a near-death experience) or would it be a lot of small things that build up gradually (a series of kindnesses that lead to acceptance), or some combination of the two? Who or what prompts these moments and how can I weave them into the story? Are they primarily internal or external? What sort of feelings are accompanying the change, and how does that relate to what we know about the character - is some empty part of them being filled or an old wound being poked, is this an intellectual or emotional reaction, are they acting out of principle or out of spite? Thinking about these questions usually helps me narrow down the options for how the character could get from point A to point B and which of these options would be the most interesting to read and write about.
For instance, I’m working on a long project that has me making a lot of notes about a character’s arc. I know that the main theme is Identity, with three related sub-themes: Masculinity, Adulthood, and Family. I know that the character starts out secure in his family role but trying to “be a man” in a way that isn’t right for him. I know that at the end he’s found his own model of masculinity and adulthood and has redefined his role in the family based on this.
To help me figure out how to get him from here to there, I first sketched out the early scenes where he’s unfulfilled, then the last scenes where he’s succeeded. I brainstormed some midpoints - places where he was starting to get things right, but not quite - and put them in the middle to see how that flowed and where the gaps still were. I then made a list of all the other characters in the story and assigned them to one or more of the three sub-themes. (ex. His mother is Family, his boss is Adulthood, his uncle is Masculinity, his love interest is a support for all three and his brothers are foils for all three.) That solved a lot of problems, because then I just had to make sure that whatever scene the protagonist had with one of those characters was moving that sub-theme along.
While I have a theme in mind for every story I write, emotional arcs are a bit more opt-in for me. This is because I pretty much only write fanfiction, where canon is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. I think you don’t always have to write out a whole emotional arc with fanfic, because people are bringing all their canon knowledge to the story when they read it, and your words are existing within or adjacent to the canon arc. A few light references or allusions and the reader builds bridges all on their own.
I don’t know if this is helpful at all. I’d be happy to try to drill down more on any of these ideas if they’re not making sense. If you let me know which of my stories you’ve read, I could probably pull some examples of how I went about writing it, and might even still have copies of my notes.
Now, plot. I’m terrible at plot. Can’t do it. Can’t think my way through it. It does not come naturally to me at all. I would love to hear about how you approach it. Any tricks and tips you could share with me?