(LOGO)
Hellooo everybody! A couple of weeks ago, I answered your ten most popular questions
about outlining. And now I'm gonna make an outline. Let's do the thing! I'm going to walk
you through my personal outlining process. Many of you probably know that I've done this in the past,
but the years have gone by, and my process has evolved. A few things to keep in mind. My personal
outlines are VERY detailed. That's just how I like 'em. If your process doesn't look like mine,
that's fine! So long as it's working for you, who cares. If you like my method, feel free to try it
out. And if you don't, I don't give a shit. Let's get to it. Before we start outlining there are
two things you'll wanna nail down. What is the overall plot of your story? And who the fuck are
your characters? Typically, you figure all of this out during what I refer to as the Thought
Dumping Phase. Thought dumping is the first part of the writing process. It is more commonly
referred to as brainstorming, but I think Thought Dumping creates a more accurate visual. Your mind
is basically pooping out ideas, and some of those ideas are gonna be shit. There
really is no right or wrong way to thought dump. You're literally just writing out every single
idea that comes to mind regarding your story. It could be lines of dialogue, characters, scenes,
plot points, settings, descriptions, whatever. The whole point is to come up with as much
content as possible for you to build off of. Now I usually Thought Dump in a Word doc on my laptop,
but I also keep a Thought Dump note on my phone, just in case I think of anything when I'm out of
the house. Once you think you have a sufficient amount of content to work with, you move on
to the outlining phase. Now my outlining phase consists of two parts. If your Thought Dump was
very organized, then you might be able to skip the first part, but if your Thought Dump looks
like an absolute clusterfuck, you're gonna want to follow along. The first part of my outlining
process is what I like to call The Puzzle Phase. Many who are familiar with my process called the
Notecard Phase, that's fine too. I go through my entire Thought Dump and I look for key events and
plot points, like the inciting incident, the first kiss, fight scenes, character deaths, the climax,
anything that drives the plot or subplots forward I find it and I write a brief description about it
on note cards or post-its. I personally prefer post-its. I also like to color code my plot
points. Red for violence - eugh. Pink for romance - so romantic! Purple for friendship - that bitch!
Let's make some plot points! Alright, we need some violence up in this bitch. Dick
Slap. Let's introduce the love interest, we can name him Shaft Danger Zone.
That's a regular nice guy name. Once you have all your cards made you move to a wide open space,
like the floor or a wall. Don't use a bed because someone will inevitably sit on it and fuck it up.
Clifford…But fortunately, Cliff got me that handy dandy poster board that you see over there.
And that's what I used for the Puzzle Phase.
The goal is to arrange all of your plot points in the order that you want them to appear in your
story. This is why I call it the Puzzle Phase. It's like you got all these little puzzle pieces,
and you're trying to fit them together. Now that we've got a surface, we're gonna take all
our post-it notes, and get to organizing. (Sound of post-it being slammed onto poster board) Bam,
(sound of post-it being slammed onto poster board) bam, (sound of post-it being slammed onto poster
board) bam, (sound of post-it being slammed onto poster board) bam, (sound of post-it being slammed
onto poster board) bam! Every story should start with a tearful breakup, because that's just good
storytelling. And you know why they broke up? Because her best friend kissed her man. That
fucking bitch! Now the aliens have showed up. This is when Shaft Danger Zone officially makes
his appearance. “Saft, we need you!” He severs the pee-pee of an alien. Why? Because that's the
source of all their power. The aliens bring in reinforcements with the walrus clan. My story,
don't judge me! Shaft Danger Zone and our main character have a cuddle fest, because well
when the walruses arrive, what else can you do? Which is when the horny fairies show up. Because
that seems to be the trend right now in fiction. Gotta have a horny fairy in your book. Clearly
this leads to a circle-jerk because horny fairies are horny. And we finished the book off with a
dick slap. Now while you're doing this, you're gonna realize a few things. One, this is fucking
hard. Writing a book is hard, get used to it. Two, you're gonna have big chunks of nothing in your
story. Don't freak out when this happens. This is normal. That's why we're doing this in the first
place. We want to find those empty moments and figure out a way to fill 'em. So that's the next
step in the Puzzle Phase. After you've organized everything you're gonna look for plot holes
and try and fill them. This alone could take a few days because you got to sit and think.
(Sound of blowing a raspberry) (Playful groaning sounds). (Sound of post-it being slammed onto poster board)
We got it! Once you’ve filled a majority of your plot holes, you should have a pretty solid
timeline for your story, and you should be able to start dividing your plot points into chapters.
Chapter one, bam! Chapter two, chapter three, four, and five. BEAUTIFULl! You can also choose
to divide your plot points into days or weeks within your story. It's your outline, do whatever
the hell works for you. And once you're done, it might look a little something like this. Ta-Da!
I'm trying to hold it far away because they're spoilers. Don't read it. Don't read it! Can you
read it? Don't read it, they’re spoilers. Can you read it? Don't read it! Now the proposal phase is
complete. We move on to part two, the ACTUAL outline. You thought that was the outline,
didn't you? You were wrong. We're taking everything we just mapped out on our poster board
and transferring it to a Word document. If you don't want to use Word you can use Google Docs,
you can use Scrivener, whatever floats your boat, but I would recommend at least typing it.
I basically regurgitate the poster board outline into a Word document using bullet points and color
coordination. Once all of the plot points are transferred over, I go back to my Thought Dump,
I take all of the remaining details and I transfer them into their appropriate places in the outline.
Remember the Puzzle Phase only took into consideration your MAIN plot points. There
should be a lot more details in your Thought Dump that haven't yet been accounted for. If you've got
streams of dialogue and your Thought Dump, go through your outline and figure out where those
conversations need to take place. If you've got violent maneuvers planned, go through your outline
and slap them in the appropriate fight scenes. Do this until everything in your Thought Dump has
found a special little home, except for the crap you decide not to use. Because it's crap. Once
you've done this, your outline should look pretty beefy. You might be thinking, “Hey, I'm done!” But
you're wrong, again! Go through your outline and locate anything that might be a problem for you
later in the writing process. Vague explanations, time gaps, plot holes, inconsistencies. Figure out
how to add depth to the shallow places. The goal is to try and make the actual writing process as
seamless as possible. If you've got a scene here or there that isn't completely flushed out yet,
it's not a big deal. Not every moment or every scene needs to be spelled out in full,
but most of it should be pretty clear. Once you filled your outline with enough writerly goodness.
Go through it one more time. Or ten more times, and look for moments that can get the axe. Does one of
your characters only show up in two scenes? Delete him! Found a moment that does absolutely nothing
for your plot. Get it out of here! Cutting the fat from your outline saves you the trouble of
making massive cuts to your novel. Once you're finished with this step. You're done! Finally,
you got an outline! Provided you're comfortable with it and you're happy with the content,
you can start writing your book. Now don't think that because you've started your book,
you can't contribute to your outline. Writer brains are all over the place. We tend to come
up with ideas pretty much all the time, when this happens pull out your outline and shove
the idea into the appropriate place. Everything is modifiable. It's your outline. It's your rules.
Now there is no standard length for an outline but as I mentioned before,
mine tend to be pretty detailed. So for my outlines, we're looking at 30 pages at a minimum,
but that's just me. If a 10 page outline works for you, have at it. So there you have it,
that is my outlining method from start to finish. You can use it if you think it'll work for you.
You could modify it to suit your needs. Or you can ignore everything I've just said and do something
completely different, I really don't care. There are lots of different outlining methods out there
so feel free to experiment. With that said, don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I post new
videos on Wednesdays. Eve: The Awakening is still available in ebook and paperback on Amazon right
now. You can also order a signed copy, all the links are listed below. Don't forget to
check out my Patreon page, also listed below. And if you have any questions or if there's
something you'd like me to talk about in my next video, be sure to Tweet me @JennaMoreci! Bye!