This is the final part of my series of posts on my outline process. I call this Draft Point Five, because by the end, I end up with a thorough map to my story that can function as a sort of half-first draft. Less an outline, more of a sketch.

Anyway, so what we’ve ended up with after the last post is a whole lot of bullet points detailing the arcs of the main plot and probably a lot of characters. These bullet points have been organized into a comprehensive road map of the plot. Now we’re going to flesh things out a bit, make this road map a whole lot better. If our bullet points are the basic directions, we’re going to turn this into a full live-GPS tracking, to keep with that metaphor.

For an example of how this grows, we’ll use an old outline I was working on for a YA dystopia novel I’ll probably never finish. It’ll at least offer some insight into the process.

For this book, I ended up with this for my 7-point outline:

Hook- July 19. Mal's sister leaves him to go to the institution as she's supposed to. It's time for her to have her ruling emotion removed. Mal is now left completely alone, at age 14.

PT1- Mal's tracker goes off (on May 2), marking him as one day truant. But it shouldn't go off for another year. He runs. He's caught and is taken to the institution.

P1- Maybe having Anticipation gone isn't so bad... until he ends up in danger, perhaps in a physical aptitude exercise. Probably a situation involving Avis, where she gets the better of him. Badness in their rivalry. Really sucks to have it removed.
MP- You know what, if they're going to make me an adult a year early, then son of a gun, I'm going to be one. Accepts he can't stop what they did to him. No escaping, so can only move forward.
P2- Assignments disappear- all that's left are military and ONE other posting.

PT2- Learns he's had not one, but 2 emotions removed, Anticipation and Fear. Suspects Lachlan, lowest point. Mal depressed, nothing is going right. Badness with Avis, Baron, Joy, Lachlan, etc. Not having Fear ends up saving the day. DETAILS!

Res- Has to have something to do with anticipation. Maybe the last line of the novel is "In just a few more months, my year will be up and I'll get my first assignment. I'll be free of Dr. Wilkinson then. Four months. I can wait." Don't have him reach his next birthday yet. The paperwork/ policy change that makes him stay at the institution for another year needs to be the inciting incident of Book 2!

Yeah, this was planned to be the first book of a trilogy, and I was planning out the whole trilogy’s road map, hence the Book 2 reference. But anyway, this covered the basic plot. I did write out interpersonal conflicts between characters and expanded those a bit to make 3 to 7 conflict arc bullet points for those character conflicts. When assigning them to separate overall plot points, I color coded them for each character to make keeping track easier. So each of my 7 main points had a list of character points in them. I’d write them out with a number for that conflict’s order in its own arc.
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Then it’s a matter of logically trying to combine plot points into chapters. Keeping it to one or two major moments in a chapter outline keeps me grounded and moving forward, while keeping me from trying to cram too many things into one scene or section. The first eleven chapters, which was about a third of the finished plan. So this takes us roughly through PT1 and partway into the P1 area of our whole arc. 

Below is the text from above, lacking the color coding.
1- Mal tries to prove he's man enough to care for himself and fails. Some sort of stunt in front of sister and her friends, all a year older than him. Joy views [his failure] as him trying to escape being left alone, actually considers trying to dodge takers and not report when it's her time.

2- July 19. Mal's sister leaves him to go to the institution as she's supposed to. It's time for her to have her ruling emotion removed. Mal is now left completely alone, at age 14. Kirk falsifies Joy's results (unknown to her) to make Fear the one required to be removed.

3- World building- see the world through a suddenly-alone Mal's eyes. Suddenly pays more attention to what's going on, updates on the war, maybe hoping for glimpses of his parents. Mention of the McIlwains and/or Avis's birth parents. Keep sight on Anticipation, see his heightened susceptibility to it.

4- PT1- Mal's tracker goes off (on May 2), marking him as one day truant. But it shouldn't go off for another year. He runs. He's caught and is taken to the institution.

5- Arrives at the institution. Immediate teasing of Mal because he's "just a kid" and is definitely whining like one. Baron is a part of this, though a small part. When he appears at the institute, Joy views it again as a form of trying to remain dependent. Can she never be free of him? It's a double-edges sword for her and seems a bit of abandonment for him. He doesn't get the welcome from her he expects. Baron tries to get her attention before Mal ever shows us, so he's shunned when we first meet him. Then he learns Mal is her brother.

6- Begin physical training. Explanation of job board and expectation that all will be required to serve military at some point due to war efforts and must be in peak physical condition. Majority of military jobs are physical rather than administrative or technical, so they can expect to be fighting.

7- Assessment of emotions. Finds out his results- Anticipation, Joy, Trust, Surprise, Anger (After the events of Book 1, this moves up into the foremost slot.), Sadness, Disgust, Fear. Lachlan assigned as his counselor and releases these results to him. Only after Mal starts turning more to Lachlan, first as his counselor, does Joy start to see Lachlan as a threat.

8- Joy's emotion removal. Baron leaves Avis's company to befriend Mal because he wants to get closer to Joy.

9- Baron resents Lachlan's authority. She's called him down for things before, issues in group sessions that he disrupts. Avis undermines Lachlan in group and/or counsels others rather than telling them to seek an actual counselor. Becomes friends with Baron. Baron befriends Mal, but Mal's attempts to get sympathy and attention from her end up getting him shunned again. He realizes their relationship isn't what he thought. Who has more guts contest. (Baron and Avis)

10- Avis's emotion removal.

11- Baron's emotion removal. Baron distrusts Kirk for being authority. Just doesn't like him.
Pay special attention to chapters 5 and 9. Those in particular have multiple colors (I hope I can maintain that in the online form - I did via a snapshot so yay!) showing where character bullet points overlapped. Those are points of greater tension, just by nature of having more colors in them, so it’s a bit easy to tell at a glance if something is going to be complicated or high emotion. Don’t want to make things too complex all the time, right?

For this particular project, that’s as far as I went in outlining. But in the years since I’ve worked on this, my outlines have gotten even more to a half-draft situation. Now, I’ll usually take those colorful charts (I call them sprinkle charts because they end up so vibrant they make me think of cake sprinkles) and expand a bit further for each chapter. If I come up with a snippet of conversation or description that might be important, I’ll include that as well. For example, the first chapter of a recently-back-burnered project looks like this at this final draft stage:

Crafting Final exam
In preparation for their enchantment assessment, which will pave the way for their pairings and the rest of their lives, each student must make an item to be used in those assessments. It need not be overly fancy or finely made. This is only a tiny part of the test. Function, sturdiness, etc is more important than appearance or decoration. These newly-made items will be gathered and become part of the final enchantment assessment.

No, you will not see the item you made in your assessment. Items will be drawn randomly, but yours will be removed if it happens to be drawn. Draws are done by the staff before the test, so it is 100% random. So no trying to prime something or pre-enchant it in hopes to give yourself an edge, or to sabotage someone specific. You’re more likely to help or harm someone unintended if you do such.

Whitt is a jeweler and makes some sort of pendant. No gems, simply cast and carved. As such, he’s the first one finished, as others are trying to be more showy, making earrings (having to make a pair) or bracelets or full necklaces, or just anything that’s more time consuming and labor-intensive. Whitt walks out seeing [FRIEND] making an elaborate hair net, but his work is all the gem captures with wire. The chain (the same chain he used to hang his pendant) is freely available to use.

This already is longer, for just being one chapter. It’s roughly as long as the whole first 5 chapters of the other example’s sprinkle chart. It’s got background situational details for me to reference, rules for the world so I’m set up well in context, and character information. I even use my [NOTE TO SELF] trick, where I don’t have a detail at the moment, so I just put in brackets in all caps what I need, so I can just move on and fill the blanks later. Brackets are easy to search for without getting extra results, since they’re rarely used in my fiction. In this case, I need a friend’s name. Until I can be bothered to name the friend, they are simply [FRIEND].

But what about chapter outlines later on, where I don’t need world setup details? Well, by then, we’re into the meat of the story. Those can get even longer! This is just a few chapters later in the same story.

6. The Pairing
Huge murmurs, uproar, etc. Friend is the one who blurts out so Whitt gets it. “Someone actually BOUGHT the top spot? That had to cost [Value]!”

That explains it. But no one knows who. Guard isn’t a noble surname. A bastard? Did someone seriously buy the spot for a BASTARD? Even prince Florent didn’t get his position advanced. He’s sitting around like 13 or 14 in a row.

Olivine stands up from her place in the crowd, looking a tiny bit sheepish, then seems to steel herself. In a clear voice, she states, “I choose Whithan Ramsey.”

Whitt’s stomach drops, but he stands. “Whithan Ramsey, Delver, Paired to Olivine Guard. Please proceed to the scribe. Second pairing selection. Borealis Gladthall.”

Whitt doesn’t manage to comprehend the sounds going on as Bori makes his choice (Nevi Miller). He makes his way to the scribe for the finalization, including the signing of their contract and the exchange of their gifts.

Olivine stares pointedly at the scribe, not at Whitt, and he wonders if he’s gotten someone who will see him as little more than a pet. When they are instructed to face one another and present each other with their gifts, Whitt realizes Olivine isn’t going to have any appreciation for the boyhood treasure he brought. Sure enough, she looks very confused, but says nothing. She presents him with [INDICATOR OF HER DESIRE FOR INDEPENDENCE] but he takes it as a sign that she sees him as property, or something similar. He’s a possession. A pet, at best. How much worse could it be?

Or this, which is from well later, in the P1 section of the outline.

22. Status Quo?
Meeting with Shepherd, called in because Wilde is returned (this needs to be quick. Did she come on the same train as Holloway?)

Holloway is also there for this. After they heard about how Whitt’s attempted poaching by Prince Clay, they insisted any formal action against Whitt, they be there to witness, so when Whitt and Olivine are called before Shepherd and Wilde, Holloway is there.

[PROF WILDE NEEDS TO BR BROUGHT IN SOON FOR CHASTISEMENT WHEN SHE RETURNS. SHE ACTUALLY ASSESSES LIV AND MAYBE REMEMBERS HER MOTHER, ALLOWS HER ACCESS TO THE STUDIO, BUT ONLY UNDER HER PERSONAL SUPERVISION.]

It’s in this whole bit that Holloway finds out that Whitt and Olivine figured out breaking objects intentionally, and they’re not the only ones. Nevi knows. Secrets don’t stay secret if more than one person knows about it. You, Whitt, HAD to know, as you’re directly part of the secret. But your crafter, and this… Nevi? Who else knows?

What about Holloway’s noble?

Once dismissed, Wilde actually tells Liv she’s eager to have her in studio. Another set of eyes, hands, and opinions are always welcome. This openness makes Whitt, Liv, AND Holloway uncomfortable.

Holloway tries to dismiss Liv, but Whitt needs to pull the same line Holloway did, something along the lines of “we’re in this together. Anything you say to me will reach her ears anyway. Save me a step.”

Holloway takes them to their office, which Whitt has never been to before. Needs to be stark, sterile, like no one ever goes there. No works in progress, no papers, notes, any of that. No reference books, art, plants, nothing. But Holloway at least looks marginally comfortable.

“I distinctly recall telling you not to inform anyone of the nature of our affinity.” Pause. “I’m assuming she knows everything.” Liv shoots back, “If I didn’t, I would certainly be asking now.”
Holloway blushes a bit at the foible, but recovers. “So how many other people have you been spreading this information to?”

Whitt says he figures his noble should be able to know his full abilities and limitations. It only makes sense. Doesn’t your noble know what you can and can’t do?

LEARN THE HORRIBLE FATE OF HOLLOWAY’S NOBLE. Incapacitated? Vegetable? Dead? What’s the deal here? Their noble has to be some sort of vegetable, being kept alive only by some specialized Tasked item that serves as life support. Also thinking maybe Holloway is in love with him/her/them?

So in short, Yes, Holloway’s noble knows, but only because they’ve told them while unconscious or incapacitated. Not like they can say or do anything about it. But I only told them after they could absolutely keep the secret.

Whitt - well, we’re not like that. We’re partners, even when we can both talk. You’re going to have to accept the fact that Olivine knows.
Holloway, clearly angry, dismisses them.
That could have gone better.

I map out ideas, brainstorming some. Ask myself questions that I’ll need to answer when I really write. I have bits of conversation to start off with, everything.

When outlines of chapters get to that size and level of detail, it becomes clearer why I call this stage Draft Point Five. An outline can easily get into the 10s of 1000s of words, which is comparable to a novella or children’s novel. Loads of info, and a very strong picture of the whole story overall.

But it’s doing this that helps me pinpoint places where I’ll get stuck or struggle. For me, that’s usually around the 70% part in a story, heading towards wrapping up. But rather than finding out that I’m stuck or need to rework something early on, after putting in dozens of hours and 50000 words, I’ve only put in maybe half a dozen hours and 12000 words. I can more easily rework things when I don’t have too much sunk into what turned out to be a problem. I can find and address issues with a purpose, rather than feeling overwhelmed with ALL THE CHANGES I’LL HAVE TO MAKE. I’ve set myself up for easier changes that won’t crush me later on.

This is so powerful for morale for me. It makes my first real drafts cleaner and easier. Once I do have a full working draft and sit down to write, each chapter is its own road map, with clear signs pointing me to the end goal.

That’s pretty much my outlining process all told. Early prep and problem-solving to save my sanity down the road. And I find I very much enjoy outlining now, as I get to discover more of the story up front and give myself things to look forward to, rather than it being a mystery with the lingering “Am I going to write myself into a corner?” dread that I so often ran into before I started outlining.
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I hope this is helpful, even a little. Find what works for you!

I probably should've done this last week, but it's fine. Final post of my outlining process series will be next week. For now, here's how progress went in June 2025.

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Dungeons & Dragons campaign 1: Bard Campaign - Session #7 fully planned. No new update. We haven’t played session 7 yet.

D&D campaign 2: Tootskies Campaign - Session 2 is in prep. Sadly, this campaign has fallen prey to the worst big bad evil guy: scheduling. My new work schedule has ruled out Wednesday play, and the party couldn’t manage to find another day we’d all be able to make work once we got through summer, so we had to call it. It sucks, but the planning I did gave me some good fodder for future individual adventures to write.

D&D Single Adventure - No progress. June brought some serious changes, and I haven’t managed to find time to work on it yet. I’m trying.

Criminal from Birth sequel - I didn’t get as much work done as I wanted, but what work I’ve done has been good. I’m managing to get about an hour most mornings to work on it, so progress is steady but slower. Second Draft Status: 30 of 37 chapters edited. (4 since last update.) I’d hoped to be done by end of July, but might be more like end of August, which is fine, as long as I keep the quality up!

LitRPG book (working title Subscription: Life) - I’ve gotten the basic bones of an outline worked up, and I’m really excited to get more into developing the idea. Really hoping this project will be as much fun as I anticipate. 

New Short Story (My Stories) - No progress this month. Tried picking at it at the tail end of June, actually, but couldn’t get my brain to it so I worked on Criminal’s sequel some instead. 

In my last post, I discussed the 7-Point Plot Structure and how I use it to create the barest of outlines for my stories. It’s pretty simple to use, but it does leave a whole lot to be desired in the way I use it. I might only have a dozen sentences in my outline between all 7 points. Not a lot of flesh there. 

But that’s when we can really start using it to develop more than the basics.

7-Point Character Arcs
Probably one of my favorite supporting uses for the plot structure is in character arcs. I use this as a way to give my characters agency, keep track of their individual desires and actions, and to help flesh out my overall outline. I find it particularly useful when I have multiple prominent characters, but especially for the protagonist and antagonist. 

I don’t necessarily keep a Hook in place for all my characters, but I often have one, just as a sort of anchoring point for bringing them into the action. While I don’t actually have a set of character plot-outlines handy as examples, the idea is very simple. Each character has their initial outset and goal for whatever portion of the story they’re in. In simple ways, I try to create each character’s arc the way I do the main plot: Plot Turns 1 and 2 are inverses or foils for each other, as are Pinches 1 and 2. So a character might start out hating the protagonist when PT1 has them butt heads in a competition. But by PT2, the protagonist has done SOMETHING to turn the character’s opinion around, and now in PT2, they in turn do something to SAVE the protagonist. An about face, but one that will make sense as a foil for who they were at the beginning of the story.

What’s really great about doing this, is creating personal arc outlines for characters gives you as the author more information to place in your greater outline. With multiple character arcs going on across the length of the story, you can map out when in the outline these moments happen, where they overlap, and where they’ll be most effective in the story. This in turn is a great way to make conflicts more dramatic, if you have two characters’ Pinch 1 moments happening in the same chapter, scene, or general timing in your plot. 

Say we have Timmy and Nadine, a pair of school students. Nadine is our protagonist, with the plot revolving around her becoming star of the swim team.

Timmy, Nadine’s friend, has his own character arc involving family life and bullies.

Nadine’s Pinch 1 moment, where the stakes are raised, is all about her swimming rival appearing, a new student with eyes on the championship.

Sure, that’s bad, but we can make it worse by adding Timmy’s PT1 moment into the scene: Timmy reveals to Nadine that his parents are getting divorced, and he might have to move.
Now Nadine’s story is complicated by her friend’s plot point. 

What’s great is, these arcs don’t need to move at the same pace. Some character arcs might be shorter, with the whole 7-point structure playing out in microcosm within one of the main plot’s points. Timmy’s story might come to a crux and resolution before Nadine even gets to the midpoint of her story, or maybe Timmy’s story comes to a head with severe bullying during Nadine’s Plot Turn 2, and Timmy’s resolution (let’s say he kicks his bully’s ass) inspiring Nadine to take real action against her rival.

If you’re one of those people who likes complex storylines with lots of characters, this can be an invaluable practice. Giving basic outlines to all your main characters, then breaking them into their individual pieces and organizing them into timing can almost make a whole story for you. Figuring out when and where to put important plot points for a whole cast gives you lots to work with, and then you can even start merging plot points together to raise the stakes. Two characters’ Pinch 2 moments happen at the same time? Make it so their goals are counter to one another, and however the event plays out, one succeeds and one fails. That gives them the drive to compete with one another.

7-Point Series Outlines
In the same way you can shrink plot structures to suit character arcs, you can also blow them up to cover the main points of a whole series (or trilogy, or whatever). It was exactly this reason that The Deadly Studies was originally planned to be a 7-novella series. Necessity ended up making it a 10-novella series, as plot points did keep growing, but that happens. Initially, I had the overarcing plot of the whole series split into a basic 7-point structure. Each plot point was intended to be one novella. I don’t have the original outline I had, but it went something similar to this:

H - Luc loses his family, victim to an assassin plot
PT1 - Luc gets adopted by the Assassin’s Guild and trains, making friends
P1 - Luc and his friends grow apart for personal reasons. Their goals take them in contrasting directions. Luc has to leave Europe for the United States
MP - Luc makes a frenemy in Tom Statford, protagonist of the main series - this is where he is set up as the character he becomes in the main series
P2 - Unable to defend himself against the wrath of literal deities, Luc makes friends again, with Tom, despite hating him.
PT2 - Luc discovers the assassin who killed his family was his sister - She’s alive and an assassin too! But for his mortal enemies.
R - Luc ends his sister and takes his place against the Templars (this was always intended to be open ended, as it ties into its parent series, The Statford Chronicles by John G. Walker)

So even in the macro-plot of the series, I had points that mirrored one another. In PT1, Luc gained a new family. In PT2, his real family was taken away from him a second time, as he discovered his sister was not only alive, but was the one who assassinated the rest of their family.

Incomplete Outlines
Thing is, you don’t HAVE to hit every point on an outline. If you’re doing character arcs, you can interrupt an outline with a character dying. Any remaining points might get handed down to another character as part of dealing with the grief or aftermath of their death. Or it just leaves emptiness, a sense of incomplete possibility. 

As long as you’re flexible and using these points as tools, you can do a lot just staying within this structure. Is it perfect and infallible? Hell no. It’s a start, a tool to use. But I’ve found some good ways to use them.

Time for another post on writing processes, and this is going to be going into my personal outlining process. Your mileage may vary; you might be better served as a pantser. You might be even more of a planner than I am. This is just one man’s method. It’s always being refined and adjusted for each project, but it at least serves as a starting point for me.

Personally, I’ve discovered that I save myself a lot of stress and failed projects if I put more effort into my outline than if I just write as I go. Pantsing, as it’s called, leads me to frustrating places I don’t necessarily want to go, and I have a hard time backtracking when it gets to that point. As a result, my outlines come in two stages. I’ll call these stages the Short Outline and Draft Point-Five.
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For blog purposes, I’ll be breaking this into three posts. So here’s Part 1!

The Short Outline
This is the stage all my projects start in. My general structure (as of right now) tends to be the 7-Point Structure. That is:

The Hook: a compelling introduction to the story’s intriguing world and/or characters.
Plot Turn 1: an inciting incident that brings the protagonist into an adventure.
Pinch 1: the stakes are raised with the introduction of the antagonist or the major conflict or challenge
Midpoint: a turning point in the story where the protagonist goes from reaction to action.
Pinch 2: the major conflict takes a turn for the worse, and all appears lost for the protagonist.
Plot Turn 2: the protagonist discovers something that helps them resolve the major conflict or defeat the antagonist.
Resolution: the major conflict is resolved, and the antagonist is defeated.

Needless to say, the way these develop for me is usually with the Hook, or the initial plot idea I had. What makes the story start in the first place. The situation. I might already have the first Plot Turn (PT1) in my head, as well. Generally, I’ll have the most basic version of the conflict in mind. That’s at least the basic starting point of most of my stories. For illustrative purposes, we’re going to be looking at my short outline for the first book of The Deadly Studies series of novellas, Assassin’s Victim.

For this, I started with an initial idea for a first line, and a snippet of what the character was at the beginning. I also had a specific date in mind, as this was a time-sensitive plot point. 

H- [8/1/92] was the day I stopped believing in God, but I don't remember exactly why. Young lacrosse player.

Wasn’t much, but it was the hook. I also had PT1 all set, and it looked like this:


PT1- Luc is approached with a proposition- thinks its regarding his father's business, but it's actually regarding him. Templar attempt at shady recruiting. He offers to fund Luc's way onto a youth traveling lacrosse team?

It sets up the initial conflict: a stranger disturbs the normal routine with a proposition. There’s a lot to it, but it involves the eventual antagonists of the series as well as the smaller conflict of this first book itself. From there, I usually use a sort of mirroring/antithesis approach. I like using logic to make PT2, the turning point for victory, be a symbolic inverse of PT1, where the world gets upended. So rather than try to fill the next structure point, I go to PT2 and figure out how the main conflict will turn around for our protagonist. In this case:

PT2- If I become it, I can fight it. Accepts proposition/mentorship with Auguste Fosse.

So while PT1 here has Luc given a proposition (which I know he will reject), PT2 has him realizing that the greatest advantage he can get is to seize his opportunity to train and become a weapon. Only he wants to be a weapon AGAINST what he was approached by before. 
From here, it’s mostly filling in the blanks. I’ve gotten the two basic turning points of the plot. I approach the Pinches (P1 and P2) the same way, with trying to make them inverse or opposite style situations. P1, for me, often becomes the sort of last straw in taking action. The protagonist has no choice now but to go on their new path. In the case of Assassin’s Victim, P1 had to be Luc losing everything, and it had to be to the very monsters he rejected. A direct reaction to his refusal of the proposition in PT1. So…

P1- Assassination- family dies

And then to counterbalance that, in P2, he needs to regain a family. The same people who killed his family want to finish the job. But he’s not alone.

P2- Templars come searching for him. Wanting to recruit him to their cause, openly this time. When he refuses, thinking them to be the ones who murdered his family, they attempt to take his life. He's saved by a shadowy figure- Auguste Fosse.

It’s there that he gains a new father figure and the new direction to resolve the conflict altogether. In this case, becoming an assassin like he was victim of.

The last pieces of the puzzle are the final Resolution and the MidPoint (MP). MP is easy, as it’s a literal turning point. What causes the protagonist to turn from reactive to proactive. It could be an external force, but in this case, I chose to have it be a conscious decision.

MP- Ends his grief, begins his search/vendetta.

Luc resolves to change things. It’s as simple as that. And finally, the resolution. A lot of that was covered in PT1, but the final should, once again, somewhat mirror the inciting incident, resolving the conflict itself.

Simply put, R- Luc is going to become an assassin. 

So as a whole, here’s how my Short Outline for Assassin’s Victim looks:

H- [8/1/92] was the day I stopped believing in God, but I don't remember exactly why. Young lacrosse player.
PT1- Luc is approached with a proposition- thinks its regarding his father's business, but it's actually regarding him. Templar attempt at shady recruiting. He offers to fund Luc's way onto a youth traveling lacrosse team?
P1- Assassination- family dies
MP- Ends his grief, begins his search/vendetta.
P2- Templars come searching for him. Wanting to recruit him to their cause, openly this time. When he refuses, thinking them to be the ones who murdered his family, they attempt to take his life. He's saved by a shadowy figure- Auguste Fosse.
PT2- If I become it, I can fight it. Accepts proposition/mentorship with Auguste Fosse. 
R- Luc is going to become an assassin.

So… what?
Well, that’s it. That’s the basics. It’s a basic roadmap of the story, waiting to be filled with more detail. You can just go straight to writing from this. Personally, I don’t. I move on to my second part of outlining, which I call Draft Point Five, but I’ll go into that in another post in this series.
I also use the 7-point plot structure to expand outlines for larger projects, which will be in the next post of this series. 

This is very much a topic I have a lot of words about, but the thing is, and I will say this in all caps:

THERE ARE NO RULES OF WRITING

Okay, that’s being facetious, but the thing is, writing is an art form, same as other art forms like physical art, digital art, dance, music, all that. I mean, the whole point of art is that it is interpreted in the eyes and heart of each individual. Everyone ingests all arts differently, so there is truly a whole lot of fuzziness in creating art.
That said, there is one big difference between writing (and other spoken media like theatre) that is a limitation, and obviously it’s what I’ve already hinted at: language itself. Naturally, being able to express a thought and have it be understood in language is a great gatekeeper for writing itself. Rather than have this post be a treatise on language (I realized I’m going totally technical-autistic and really getting into the bare bones foundation of language, which is where I don’t want to be), let’s just acknowledge that basic fact and step into actual “writing rules” as they’re called.

Okay, so the “rules of writing fiction” are not a thing like the Ten Commandments or the Terms of Service for your travel blender. There are no prescribed rules, so it’s not easy to find a list. For ease of reference, I’m going to call in some of Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers. I’m really going to go into just a couple that I have something to really say about.

King: Don’t use passive voice. “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe. The timid fellow writes “The meeting will be held at seven o’clock” because that somehow says to him, ‘Put it this way and people will believe you really know. ‘Purge this quisling thought! Don’t be a muggle! Throw back your shoulders, stick out your chin, and put that meeting in charge! Write ‘The meeting’s at seven.’ There, by God! Don’t you feel better?”

My take: Okay, the passive voice in general isn’t great, and King makes a good case with his phrasing, but I think it’s seriously oversimplified. There is nothing wrong with the passive voice when used well. Of course, using it well usually involves using it sparingly. But there’s a reason it exists. It can help weaken something further when you already want it to be weakened. Like everything else, it’s another tool, and it’s there to be taken advantage of. But it’s more like a cherry pitter than a cutting board. Some tools you are going to use in every meal (or writing session. I’m making an analogy here.) Some tools you only use in one specific case (like pitting cherries) until you realize it can be used in this one other, somewhat unexpected place (like pitting olives.) When you really need it, you’ll be glad you have it. But most of the time, it’s just an option you can ignore.

King: “The adverb is not your friend. Consider the sentence “He closed the door firmly.” It’s by no means a terrible sentence, but ask yourself if ‘firmly’ really has to be there. What about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before ‘He closed the door firmly’? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, then isn’t ‘firmly’ an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?”

My take: Oh, fuck right off with this nonsense. Adverbs are highly useful, and they are friends. To keep up with the cooking analogy, adverbs are going to be more like cumin or cinnamon. Used right, they absolutely make a dish. Used wrong, it’s pretty obvious. They’re a seasoning, a decoration, not the main part of the meal. But to avoid them is like cutting off a couple fingers. Can you get on without them? Sure, easily. If you have them, though, you prose can be more colorful and powerful without using extra words when one can suffice. They can serve to underline speech or make an action explode. It’s only when they’re shoddily or excessively used that it becomes a problem.

King: Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.” “While to write adverbs is human, to write ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ is divine.”
John Scalzi: Not directly quoted, and he has since updated his stance on it, but he said something along the lines of “You don’t need any dialog tag stronger than ‘said’ unless it’s maybe ‘asked.’”

My take: This is one that I will harp on forever. I bring Scalzi’s name into it because he’s the one I first heard this idea from, and it was he who totally debunked it for me with one particular book. I’ll get to that in a minute.
So, Scalzi’s updated thoughts on it are thus:

In print, having “he said” and “she said” at the end of dialogue makes good sense — it helps direct traffic and pacing. They can get repetitive, but most readers eventually gloss over them — they know they’re there but their brain starts processing them more like punctuation than words. They see them, but they don’t sound them out in their heads.
But in audio, every “he said” and “she said” is spoken out loud by the narrator. I was never more aware of how much I used dialogue tags than I was while listening to one of my audiobooks.

It was through listening to Scalzi’s book Redshirts in audio form that I noticed what he’s mentioned. The audio version is read by Wil Wheaton, and it’s painful how much the word “said” appears in that book. Like Scalzi mentioned, if I’d been reading the book in written form, I would be ignoring most of the “saids.” But Wheaton says every one in the audio form, and it’s horrible listening to these conversations with multiple people, where after every line, Wheaton also has to say “Dahl said,” “Duvall said,” or “Jekins said.” There are a lot of scenes featuring three or more speakers, so there has to be ways to delineate who is saying what, but in this case, “said” isn’t it. Not as a blanket tool.

This rule, as it was interpreted before, is a staple case of (keeping with my cooking analogy) overusing a seasoning in your meal. You’ve oversalted seriously by only using “said.” The meal is edible, but it is not a pleasant experience for anyone. Listening to Redshirts becomes an exercise in not getting annoyed at every instance of the word “said.” If I’m correct, I recall counting only 3 instances of a dialog tag other than “said,” with two of them being “asked.” Whatever the actual count is, it’s awful. Those few non-saids become a breath of fresh air, but it was a problem of the author’s own making in the first place.

In short, use dialog tags. They don’t have to be the adverb-followed ones. Language has a ton of words to choose from. Boomed, belted, shouted, roared, whispered, breathed… they’re all valid and use up a single word, same as said does.

Are they the best choices, just straight substitution? No. But there are a lot of better options than just only using “said.”

King: But don’t obsess over perfect grammar. “Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes. The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story… to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.”

My take: I totally agree with this one! Perfect grammar is great as a foundation for language, but people don’t talk this way. Not even self-proclaimed Grammar Nazis speak perfectly 100% of the time. Your characters shouldn’t either, whether in dialog or in description or narration. Perfect grammar gets uncomfortable pretty quickly, like a harness or handcuffs. Don’t start sentences with conjunctions? Yeah, I’ve done that a few times just in this blog post. Don’t end sentences with prepositions? That’s not even an actual grammatical rule in English; it’s just a personal preference (sorry, Mrs. Matlock, but it’s true. Seriously, my late high school Latin teacher was a stickler for this one, and I always disagreed. Miss you, Mrs. Matlock).

Bend the grammar rules all you want, but there’s the line between reader and writer that is always there. As a reader, if I can’t understand your writing, I’m not going to read it. As a writer, I try to make my words accessible, but damn do my thoughts interrupt each other a lot. So there’s a ton of grace to be given and taken on both sides to make a story understandable. It’s finding the balance and walking the line that is most important.
Which is pretty much the whole point I’m making in this post.

I think I’ll leave it here. I’ve only addressed a few writing rules, but I wanted to go into the more technical ones than the subjective ones like “Eliminate Distractions” and “Read Read Read.” 
I guess in conclusion, there are skills to writing to hone, and there are “rules” to writing that every writer needs to prioritize or discard on their own. Even poor techniques can have their place, when used correctly. That’s all practice and learning.
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Just write. Fail, revise, and write again. Succeed, figure out why, and imitate your own successes. That’s my rule of writing, I guess. Do it, and then do it again.

 I'm honestly very pleased that I've been maintaining weekly posts here on the website blog and an additional one each week on Patreon, since I started back in February. It's actually become something I look forward to on Mondays. I've been working on trying to get things prepped ahead of time. You know, actually thinking ahead, and that's going to become even more important in the coming months, as I might have a new job on the horizon that will eat up a lot of hours. Might mean Fridays or Sundays become my "get this set up and scheduled" date with Monday being the release date for posts. The last thing I want to do is to lose this momentum. I've been enjoying getting this done.

That said, planning blog posts ahead of time is not always easy. I don't always have something to write about, and while I do have some future posts in the works, I don't have a lot of them to fall back on if I'm having a dry spell.

So I'm getting help! I found this "A Year's Worth of Blog Post Ideas for Writers" post (you know, pretty much exactly what I was looking for) that is going to give me plenty of things to go on about for a while. I can pick at these ahead of time and have them ready in a pinch. Be prepared to see some of these coming in the future. Will they be in the offered order? I doubt it. Will it be one of these every week? Of course not. I have my monthly updates that I like to and will continue to post.

But these are going to be some direction, which I am grateful for. See you guys next week!

I promised it eventually, so here we are. I’ve been an avid reader since I learned to read, around age 4 or so, and well… I’m pushing 41 now. Many of my favorite books are ones I chose a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean I have stopped adding to the list. So, this is going to be a somewhat eclectic mix, but I’ll try to cover a variety and give some insight into why I love them. Don't be surprised if there are additional posts like this one in the future, detailing other books I love for various reasons. These are just some of the ones that have either spent a long time in my favor or exploded onto the scene so strongly I can't not love them.

Phantom (Susan Kay) - I found this book when I was in high school and fell in love. It’s a retelling of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera and goes into much more detail of the characters and creation of the Phantom himself. Those of you who know me know I love prequels and how-does-this-come-to-be stories, and this is very much one. The book is broken into sections from different points of view: the phantom’s mother, the phantom as a young boy, a companion, Christine, and others. I’ll admit that it’s a format I adopted myself for Starsigns, telling the story from different POVs.

Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) - Yeah, I know this one is problematic. Not the book itself, but the author. As much as it sucks, I fell in love with Card’s writing over 25 years ago, well before the world was alerted to his horrible opinions on humanity outside his narrow view. I am proud to say he hasn’t gotten any money from me since I found out. The books are good, just buy them used so he’s not getting money for them.

Anyway, there is still a lot of this story (and the extended Enderverse) that gripped a young me. First of all, it’s centered around games, but it’s also got a varied cast (heavily male, but that’s explained in the book). The few female characters are very memorable and strong. 

But it’s largely the psychology of the whole book that’s its strongest draw. Through conversations, you get a lot more information on what’s going on in the greater world and insight into the minds of many of the younger characters. There’s also a big shock reveal towards the end that in retrospect, couldn’t have happened any other way. I know it’s sort of silly to attempt not to spoil a 40-year-old book that’s already been adapted to film, but I’d simply prefer not to risk it.

The Eyes of the Dragon (Stephen King) - I’m probably more attached to this book for nostalgia reasons than anything else. I’ve read a double handful of King’s books and generally, his stories are great, but I’m not overall a big fan of his writing style, and personally, I have yet to be truly satisfied with the ending of any of his books I’ve read. I love the premises he comes up with.
The Eyes of the Dragon is a fantasy novel he wrote for his daughter when she was young-ish. In many ways, it’s told as if it were a story being passed orally to the next generation, which I love. It reads like a bedtime story in a lot of ways. 

I think, at least as far as writing is concerned, I keep this book close because it’s a good reminder of the idea of small details meaning big things. There are a lot of early plot details that become critically important as the book develops to its climax, and the way so much is woven is is pretty great. But I can’t ignore how abruptly and somewhat unsatisfactorily the story ends. It does sort of lead into the greater body of King’s work, involving a villain that spreads across many of his works. Sadly, I lack the temperament to enjoy the other books the character is in, but that’s a me thing.

I still love this book. I have the audio version and listen to it probably once a year or so. It might be familiarity that breeds contempt, but what outgrowing of it I’ve done as a reader and writer is more aimed to dislike the last fifth or so of the book. Maybe even not that much. The climax is so darn good! It’s just the denouement that leaves me unsatisfied. 

Which is also something I recognize in my own works. I struggle with endings. Maybe this is part of why I’m so aware of it.

Fuzzy Nation (John Scalzi) - Now we’re getting into books I discovered more recently than my late teens and early 20s. I found Fuzzy Nation when I was in my early 30s, but then again, this one was published in 2011, so it didn’t even exist until more recently than the previous three.
Fuzzy Nation is a reboot of a 1962 novel called Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper. Honestly, I think one of the biggest draws of it for me is that it has the same sort of woven ends effect as The Eyes of the Dragon does. The tiniest details from the beginning come back to build the climax in the most massively satisfying way, I can only hope one day I’ll be as skilled a wordsmith. It centers around a planet being mined for resources at the expense of the its natural flora and fauna, and it’s… it’s just a whole lot of legal corporate bullshit versus environmentalism and ethics and I am here for it. 

Again, I mostly consume it via audio format. Wil Wheaton does the narration and does a fantastic job, honestly. 

This book is witty and heartfelt on so many levels. The characters feel very fleshed out, layered just like actual people are. That’s something I can very much say Scalzi does well. I’ve read a few of his books, but Fuzzy Nation is one that brings me to laughter and tears (both joyous and sad) every time I read or listen to it.

Dungeon Crawler Carl (Matt Dinniman) - Okay, I’m counting the whole series in this one, or at least what’s come out so far (up to book 7, This Inevitable Ruin). This is very much a new addition to my favorite book lists, as I’ve only been a fan for about two or maybe 3 years now (I honestly forget). But I've already talked about it on this blog, too. It's that good.

DCC is irreverent, gory, violent, absurd, and has made me cry more than I would have thought a series described that way could. Its premise is that Earth’s apocalypse is going to be televised; aliens have laid claim to Earth’s natural resources, but there is a slim chance humanity can regain its claim over our planet. If someone completes the 18-floor dungeon, they have a right to claim Earth. The dungeon is essentially one of the most popular reality shows in the greater universe, with quadrillions (or more) aliens of all types tuning in. Popularity and profitability are major draws, and the protagonist Carl (who get stuck with his ex-girlfriend’s show cat) has to navigate a universe much bigger than him while simply trying to stay alive in a video-game-like dungeon.

The characters, settings, and style Dinniman have cultivated for this series are absolutely enthralling. I eat these books up, but they’re ones I’m more than happy to wait for with each new installment. If you’re not sensitive to foul language and a hell of a lot of violence, blood, and gore, read these. The audio versions are brilliant (voice actor/narrator Jeff Hays is phenomenal). I also know there is a full audio immersion version  that I haven’t listened to yet. I need to.
This is the kind of book I wish I could write. The fan base Dinniman has cultivated is incredible. His writing is lean, descriptive, and… okay look, I don’t know how he did it, but the man managed to write an entire book where the actual setting cannot be fathomed… and it makes sense… somehow.

I’m just flat out in awe of Dinniman and this series. I need to read his other words, but based on what I’ve heard of Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon, I need to be very VERY mentally prepared for it.

A couple weeks ago, I talked about convincing myself that effort can be used in small chunks. Long stretches of craft, be it writing, crafting, exercise, or whatever aren't the only good use of my time and energy. 

I've been making some good strides on that front. I'm one of those chronically early people, so I always set my morning alarms to give me more time than I need. On days when I work, I usually end up with 30-40 minutes to myself after getting ready and eating. I know that amount of time isn't "small," but for me, it's less than I'm accustomed to. I've been so long of the mindset that 2 hours is the minimum functional working time that making good on 30 minutes is big for me.

And I've been doing it. I might not manage to edit a full chapter, but I can edit some, or write a few paragraphs of a story in that time. It's getting easier again to find that train of thought and then note for myself where to pick up next time.

In short, I am a work in progress myself, and I'm improving. A few minutes at a time.