To Whoever Needed To Hear It

Create your outline - full guide

Here’s my quick and easy run-down on how to create a full outline for your projects — all the plot beats your story is meant to have!

The only thing you should really have before you start plotting is your character arcs.

Why? What happens if you don't have them?🤔

- Your plot is way more likely to feel unfounded

- You're going to lack change through the story

- You'll be writing for plot only, and lose any deeper meanings

- Your outline could feel decent to you, but when you start writing you will quickly lose interest

📌Remember this one important thing before we start.📌

Plot & world building are just tools to tell your characters' story.

👉ACT 1

Here are the beats you should hit in the first 10-20k words.

STATUS QUO - Your protagonists current situation, with all its faults and potential.

INTERNAL CONFLICT - Most important one!!! You have to paint the start of your character's arc (preferably on page 1), by hinting at their fatal flaw, misbelief, regret, or something that holds them back.

INCITING INCIDENT - The event that pulls your character out of their comfort zone and makes them debate.

DWELLING AND ACCEPTING - Your character's first actions: do they refuse the call? What makes them finally accept it? This is where you form a clear external goal.

Are you ready for the murky middle?

👉ACT 2

Beats to hit in the murky middle.

NEW WORLD - The character finds themself in a new uncomfortable place they need to learn to navigate.

A FEW CHALLENGES - What's the external goal they're working towards? What are the steps they can take to get closer to it and what challenges do they find along the way?

MIDPOINT - Plot twist! They've reached their goal but it turns out not to be what they expected. Introduce a higher stakes goal.

THINGS TURN SOUR - Your hero's thrown off their rocker and they can't keep up with the blows.

BIGGEST HIT - Your hero experiences the worst hit in the whole story, and they give up. They go back to their status quo, defeated.

Is the middle feeling a little less murky now?👀

👉ACT 3

Beats to hit in your final stretch.

THE LIGHTBULB - What breaks your hero back out of their darkest moment? What makes their little brain cogs turn again? ...or who?

THE NEW PLAN - How do they decide to deal with the whole mess they've created?

EXECUTION - How do they tackle it, and does everything go smoothly, or do they face one final challenge that forces them to reconsider some things?

THE TRANSFORMATION - They complete their character arc, they've finally learned their lessons.

TYING UP LOSE ENDS - They resolve any remaining open questions, and showcase the change from who they were at the start.

I teach you this and so much more inside my Academy. You'll start from the really important stuff, so you know the purpose behind your book, and your full character arcs. That's when the outline snaps into place.

Join 200+ students inside the academy today, but be fast, prices are going UP at the end of the month!

Join NPA through the [link here] or below!

the-plottery.com

Novel Plotting Academy

Self-paced online writing course that provides all the tools you need to plan your novel, and teaches you how with fun, easy-to-follow video

I don't want to be that person, but can we, like... make fan-content of Miguel O'hara adopting every young spidy (including the live action movies) or something like that

Lo que hice mientras me aburría en clase // What I did while I was bored in class

Hot take: the Spiderverse movies are quite possibly the most relatable superhero movies I’ve ever experienced because I’ve never seen a superhero movie nail the ‘being queer and closeted’ experience down to a T

Like the AMOUNT of experiences they get down so well is just

- not feeling accepted anywhere, even within your own community sometimes, feeling like a mistake no matter where you go

- hiding half your identity from your parents (I swear to god that scene where Miles is about to tell Rio he’s Spiderman in ATSV is literally me trying to come out to my parents and chickening out, it hurt to watch)

- fearing rejection from your parents (“Dad, do you really hate Spiderman?”)

- finding out the people you look up to and trust wouldn’t accept you and would actually try to harm you and the sheer terror that comes from it (god the Prowler reveal in the first movie still hurts me)

- gravitating more and more towards friends who are also queer because they get you (aka the spideys from different dimension just gravitating together)

- just. having a secret identity, in general

- the underlying theme of the movies that despite anything, despite the world rejecting you, despite your own community rejecting you, you are valid and you are loved and you should never forget that (which is not an inherently queer experience but g o d)

I could go on, but. Just. Dammit, these movies mean so much to me.

love writing. writing is awesome. it’s a shame that it involves writing though

"I want to be a dragon."

The Barbie movie isn't about girl power. It's not about how women can do everything they set their mind to. It's about how sometimes women are tired and average and that has to be okay too, because you don't have to do everything to be worth anything. (And that this is also true of men.)

Common dialogue mistakes

Are you making any of these common dialogue mistakes? Read the post to find out what they are and how you can quickly fix them.

Does dialogue feel like a struggle? Here are the most common mistakes I see writers make that have their dialogue falling flat.

👉 The length of a single line

Less is more, and this is very true for dialogue. The quicker you can get your point across, the punchier the dialogue will read.

A lot of the time if you feel your dialogue dragging, you may be repeating points that you’ve already said.

👉 No unique character voices

A big web to untangle, but ask yourself this: If I left out dialogue and action tags entirely, would my readers still be able to tell who’s speaking?

If yes, that’s when you know you have a strong and unique character voice.

The worst thing you can do is make all your characters sound the same, or just like you.

👉 Exposition everywhere

Using dialogue as a means to lay down exposition or explanation can come off very cringy to readers.

Would these characters realistically say that to each other, if you didn’t need the reader to know?

When in doubt, trust that your readers can take hints and fill in gaps. Always write from the head of your character first.

👉Trying to be too realistic

Adding in too many pauses, elipses, ums, uhhs, and errs can get tiring very quickly, especially if every single character does this.

Yes, most people speak like that, but fictional dialogue is stronger the punchier and tighter you keep it.

👉 The white room syndrome

Sometimes writers get so involved in the dialogue and scene that they forget to lay out the setting or tell the readers what’s happening around your characters.

This leaves no image in your readers’ heads, and makes your writing feel non-immersive.

Use the setting, background people, and props to enhance the scene.

Have you heard about my online writing course, Novel Plotting Academy? Join 200+ students today to plot your outline with ease, finally finish that draft and get the book deal you’ve always wanted.

Enroll to NPA today through the [link here] or below!

the-plottery.com

Novel Plotting Academy

Self-paced online writing course that provides all the tools you need to plan your novel, and teaches you how with fun, easy-to-follow video

the elusive 7 act Structure