How to outline a story

My buddy Luka was talking the other day about a story he wants to write. He told me he wants to do an outline first, but he isn't sure how. He said he'd look up instructions online. Being a dork with a new blog, I immediately offered, "I can write down for you how I do it, and it can be my next blog entry."

But then I thought later, what if that's totally redundant? What if there's plenty of better instructions out there already? I mean, I'm obviously not the first person who ever wrote about how to write. Writers love to write about how to write. It's so much easier than actually working. So I spent some quality time with Google, and I can tell you first off, do not Google 'how to write an outline' unless you're writing a term paper. That's all you get from that search. You want to search 'how to outline a novel' instead.

That search will get you a whole lot of instructions about how to compress an already-developed novel into an outline. Most of the instruction-writers seem to think they're telling you how to outline before you write. But the things they tell you to write down are the kind of things you probably don't know yet, or which you'll change while you're working. I used to try to outline the way they tell you to, and found it incredibly frustrating. Most of the time I just threw out my outline and winged it instead.

They tell you to write down things like your cast of characters, the major events of your plot, details of setting and motivation. Well, if you already know what you're going to write, you go right ahead and do that. What you are doing is called taking notes. You are, in essence, writing yourself a memo so you don't forget. That's okay. Good luck. Go write. No, go on now, you're set.

Still here? Then I bet you have an idea for a book/comic/movie/whatever, and you want to write an outline to figure out how it goes. Awesome. Yours is going to end up being better than the guys who just toodled off to outline the complete story that's already sitting in their heads. This is because any story that can fit inside someone's head all at once is a pretty simple one. Not that that's always a bad thing, but it's not going to be the kind of rip-roaring mind-twister of a ride that's too alive to balance nicely atop your brain.

What's for lunch?

First thing you want to do is write down the things that are balancing in your brain. No particular order, don't try to make sense of it, just spam it all down on the page. It won't be anything like an outline, but that's just fine. For demonstration purposes, I'm going to use a dream I had the other night, which I could turn into a comic or screenplay or whatever if I wanted to. I haven't written a word about it yet, so this is the real process I'm going through right now. Your first stage will look something like this:

A detective was interested in this weird girl whom everyone thought was crazy. He thought she had something going on in her life that threatened her, and wanted to help her. She disappeared in strange circumstances, leaving the caretaker of her apartment building messily dead. She was the main suspect, but he didn't believe she did it, he thought she was in danger. Through various clues, he found that she'd been kidnapped by a tall dark man, and the dark man did the murder. The detective learned she'd been taken to Faerie. He followed and tried to rescue her her. Then she told him the dark man was her brother Deimos, and she wouldn't leave without him, but Deimos wouldn't leave because he was in love with the king of the realm, Karil. Karil is more like Bowie's goblin king than like Oberon. The detective was in the tricky position of giving up on the girl or trying to gank the King of Faerie's murderous enforcer who doesn't want to leave.

You'll notice a few things about what I just wrote. Half the characters don't have names; big chunks of plot are missing; motivations are thin or absent; it's a bit derivative, and possibly cheezy; it's somewhat unbalanced in terms of buildup, climax, etc.; and it completely lacks an ending. I couldn't outline this the way most sources tell you to outline. Nothing would follow from anything else, and in trying to fill in the gaps, I'd come up with dumb stuff and then be stuck with it.

So I'm going to need a different kind of outlining to make headway from here.

What's in the fridge?

The next step is to organize these thoughts. This is where it starts taking on a sort of outliney-looking form. At this point I find color useful, but you can use indenting or something instead if you prefer. But whatever you do, at this point, do not number anything. You have to be free to shuffle things and insert things, and if you have a numbering scheme going, you'll be reluctant to change anything. At this stage, the whole point is to change things.

First jot down some categories, like so:

Characters

Events

Conflicts

Images

You can add more categories at any time, change the names of the categories, whatever. Some things will be in more than one category. Some categories may be empty. That's fine. Now divide up everything you know so far until everything is written under a category heading. Try to keep each item short, like one sentence. I like to use a different color for this stage.

Characters
detective
girl
Deimos
Karil

Events
girl acts weird
girl vanishes
detective investigates
witnesses mention dark man
detective discovers girl was kidnapped
detective finds way into Faerie
detective finds girl
girl won't leave without brother

Motivations
detective wants girl
Deimos wants to take girl home
girl wants to be with Deimos
Deimos wants to be with Karil

Images
- parking lot behind apartment complex, shuffly old caretaker taking trash out, investigating noise, Deimos shredding him
- girl running lightly along telephone wire
- door in enormous tree, very dark, moss dripping everywhere; door is made of rusty sawblades and other old iron
- Karil in outrageous finery ordering casual atrocities
- Deimos's snarling loyalty

You may have noticed that 'Conflicts' changed to 'Motivations'. I realized as I was about to fill in the category that 'Motivations' fit the items better. You may also notice that it's still pretty disjointed. It's cool, we're not done.

Making a shopping list

So now we need to figure out what, precisely, the story lacks. Where the gaps are. What questions we need to answer. Again, I like to use yet another color.

Characters
detective -- needs a name
girl -- needs a name
Deimos
Karil

Events
girl acts weird -- how?
girl vanishes -- circumstances must include witness, leave clues
detective investigates -- why? Curiosity or hired? Conflict with cops?
witnesses mention dark man -- unless the witness is unreliable, the girl wouldn't be a suspect. Accomplice at worst, if witness saw her leaving without a struggle.
detective discovers girl was kidnapped -- How? Asked same witness? Contacts in police? Steals evidence?
detective finds way into Faerie -- that's a pretty big jump. Was he predisposed to believe in this stuff, or was it really obvious, or does he fall through by accident, or --?
detective finds girl -- another big jump. Presumably she's with Deimos, who is clearly one scary mofo, and detective doesn't know his way around. I think this is where the bulk of the adventure is.
girl won't leave without brother -- what is this girl thinking? She must know Deimos won't want to leave. Is she testing Detective's affection, or playing with him, or overly optimistic, or trying to get Deimos out of what she thinks is a bad situation, or --??

Motivations
detective wants girl -- circumstances? How'd he get interested in the first place? What's his excuse for having contact with her at all? Are they involved?
Deimos wants to take girl home -- This is pretty simple. He misses his little sis.
girl wants to be with Deimos -- then why'd she leave in the first place? Maybe she doesn't want to be in Faerie, but she's willing to risk it in the hope of getting her bro out?
Deimos wants to be with Karil -- another simple motivation: Tainted Love. (crap, now I have that song going through my head.) Is there an oath bond or spell that needs to be broken, or is he really in love with him? BIG QUESTION: Is there a reason they both have to be guys? I'm thinking no. This story has a case of Gratuitous Gay*. Change or no?

Images
- parking lot behind apartment complex, shuffly old caretaker taking trash out, investigating noise, Deimos shredding him -- why does Deimos shred him? The old guy is no threat. Either Deimos is a bad, bad man, or I gotta change the guy.
- girl running lightly along telephone wire -- So she's not human?
- door in enormous tree, very dark, moss dripping everywhere; door is made of rusty sawblades and other old iron -- iron keeps faeries out. Or in.
- Karil in outrageous finery ordering casual atrocities -- like what? What's his political situation like?
- Deimos's snarling loyalty -- compelled, genuine, or insane?

HOW DOES IT END? Does Deimos come along? Does girl stay? Something else?

So now I know what I need to fill in. I have a hell of a lot of figuring-out to do. That's going to be some serious work, but once I get all those questions answered, I'll know I have no plot holes, no flimsy motivations, no characters who are supposed to be smart but do moronic things, none of that crap. It'll be guaranteed solid.

*One note about the Gratuitous Gay. This is a problem which I doubt is particularly common, but I have it in spades. In reaction to the vast, echoing void in popular media where the queers ought to be, I have developed a habit of putting at least one interesting GLBT character in everything. This is a bad habit. Sure, these characters need to exist, but I can't fill that void singlehandedly, and it's getting to be a gimmick. So now I have to check myself each time I have a story idea. In this case, though, I won't change it, because Deimos and Karil are characters I've already played around with in other contexts, and I'm kind of attached to them as they are.

I'll continue this in another installment later. Right now I have to go do some real work. Expect the rest within the week.

How To Write Comics

This is something I first wrote in the journal on my DA gallery, in response to a conversation over there. Just a quick rant on how (and how NOT) to write comics. For the moment I require you to ignore any distinction between the terms 'comics' and 'manga'; I tend to use them interchangeably, and someday I'll explain why, but that day is not today.

---

The most difficult stage of drawing a comic comes before the drawing starts. Drawing takes the most time, but figuring out what you're going to draw is the real brain-drainer. Success at this stage can make even a badly-drawn comic wildly popular; failure at this stage can make even the most beautiful comic a yawner.

I don't pretend to be the master or anything, but I do get props for my writing. So I'm just going to core-dump about the subject here, in the hope that it'll be helpful.

The beginning:
Movement is important throughout the comic, but especially so in the first pages. I don't mean you have to start with an action sequence, but do avoid the temptation to open with a character musing quietly under a cherry tree, or a planet floating in space surrounded by intro text. Your readers will forgive a bit of confusion if you make it clear that it'll resolve over time -- i.e. feed them the explanations bit by bit -- more easily than they'll forgive being made to sit through a lecture before they can get to the story.

You don't want to go too far the other way, though; while starting in medias res is a classic attention-grabber, I advise against dumping the reader into chaos right away. If you start with action, keep it simple and don't load too many new concepts or characters into it.

The best opening sequences provide a snapshot of the setting, the main character(s), and the conflict, as well as giving the reader a reason to care. It's best if you can give them an idea what style of story they're getting into as well. You can take a lot of tips from movies. For instance, consider the intro to 'Fight Club'. We learn that the setting is modern-urban, the main characters are ordinary men who appear to be at least a little unhinged, and it's going to be the sort of story where concept drives action. And it's hard not to care at least a little about a guy with a gun in his mouth.

Characters:
You must decide who your protagonist is. There may be some other character who gets as much screen time, or even more; in the case of a romance comic, the love interest often gets more lines than the protagonist. The protagonist is the one who moves the story. Whether he actively makes choices and actions that drive the plot, like Edward in 'Full Metal Alchemist', or warps the story around him simply by existing, like Alucard in 'Hellsing', he's the reason the story exists.

In the case of my own comic, Star is Metanoia's protagonist. Zander is in-panel just as often, and has his own stories to play out; Milo drives events from behind the scenes with his plots and manipulations; various characters and factions have their own influences on the story. But without Star, Metanoia wouldn't exist. He holds the story together.

You don't have to introduce the protagonist in the first panel, the first page -- or even, if you're really confident in your storytelling skills, the first chapter. But you do have to bring him on fairly early, and give the reader an idea who he is. It's a good idea to show important supporting characters reasonably early as well, or their introduction later feels like you're playing a trick on the reader. You don't want the reader to feel like you're just throwing things at him out of the blue; you want him to feel like he's in it with you, along for the ride. You want your reader to trust you, and that means giving him the information he needs to know what's going on at least as well as the protagonist does, and probably a little better.

You also need to give the reader a reason to care what happens to these characters. Too often, I've read a book or comic or seen a movie that was full of interesting ideas and wonderful artistry, but been left feeling let down because I didn't give a damn about the characters. The recent 'Star Wars' movies come to mind -- fantastic eye-candy, but any of the main characters could've been swapped out for other characters without changing my opinion. Hell, they could've dropped Kenshin and Utena in there as Jedi, and it would've improved things.

To avoid getting a review like that, you have to make your characters feel real. No matter what they have for power, looks, backstory, angst, snappy lines, etcetera, they won't grab the reader if they don't feel like real people. Since the world of writing advice contains bazillions of words on how to do this, I won't go on about it here.

Setting:
Setting is another thing where 'real' counts more than flashy. Even in a fantasy setting wildly different from our own world, all the cool scenery and props you can devise won't make your setting a grabber if it feels pasted-on. Give your world plenty of thought before you start, and keep notes as you go, so you don't forget things your characters might have to react to.

If it's a sci-fi comic set in space, don't just copy 'Star Trek' or 'Gundam' and call it good. Take a mental space-trip yourself, and think what it feels like to be living in a humming metal can surrounded by billions of kilometers of vacuum. What does the air smell like? Does the food taste kinda weird? Do you obsessively check the ship's progress online to find out the names of the stars you're passing, just to keep from feeling lost?

If it's a fantasy comic full of strange races, imagine yourself among your characters' society. Do the other races fascinate you, or wig you out a little, or both? If there's magic everywhere, what does it feel like to know that anything, anywhere, could change in any way, just because some magic-user got a bug up his ass? Is that exhilarating or scary?

Even if you set your comic in the 'real world' you have to give it some thought. I can't count all the 'school' comics that feel like their writers never went to school themselves, and patched together their idea of school from 'Ranma' and 'Sailor Moon'. Think of your own school experiences. If you have a gritty urban setting, experience some urban grit; don't just drive through the 'bad' neighborhoods, get out and go buy a soda at that seedy-looking convenience store, and imagine that you do this every day on the way to work. If it's a country setting, at least read up on the weather and terrain of the area, so you don't end up making your Nevada desert feel like a sandbox with one potted cactus in it.

And please -- this is a pet peeve of mine -- resist the urge to set your comic in Japan just because it's a manga. Even if you're in love with your Japanese names and clothes and cultural references, take the time to consider whether the story would work just as well if the main characters were named Jim and Sarah instead of Jin and Sakura.

Dialogue:
Use it sparingly. This is very hard at first. I'm still struggling with it. It's sometimes hard to remember what I can show with pictures instead of explaining with text.

Remember the characters' voices. I mean this literally; I find it helps to imagine a friend or movie star or voice actor who sounds like my character. Speak their lines out loud sometimes to feel whether they flow. A lot of dialogue glitches can be avoided just by reading the script aloud.

Script and layout:
There are as many different ways of doing this as there are mangaka. Everyone has their own method. Personally, I like to write a detailed script, broken into panels, and then do layout right on the page as I go, without a storyboard. Some prefer more preparation, making a storyboard and tweaking it until it's perfect. Some like to wing it; Fireball, for instance, works from nothing but a plot outline, and works out final dialogue while lettering. Experiment with different techniques. I reccommend starting with more preparation than you think you need, then learning which prep items you can do without as you go.

However you do it, though, don't get bound too tightly by your prep. Give yourself permission to change things as better ideas come along. Particularly in webcomics, where your page count per chapter doesn't matter, you can insert sections or chop them out without fear. Hell, some of the best lines in Metanoia came because a word bubble was the wrong size for the line I had scripted, and I came up with a better way to say it while I was lettering.

I am the Smoking Man

Well, I hadn't planned to write about smoking as my very first post (we're not counting that nonsense down there), but since I'm chewing on my last coffin nail and about to venture into the cold world to fetch more, it's sort of on my mind.

Okay, thing one, I smoke. I smoke a LOT. At least a pack a day. I'll smoke two or more when I'm stressed enough. It's not something I'm proud of, but I'm not particularly ashamed either. So I have a stinky addiction -- so what? Being a perfect person is not on my list of things to do.

Thing two, I'm kind of crazy. Bipolar disorder, social anxiety, and ADD make a pretty potent cocktail. There is no medication that fixes these things. Most of the meds that make them somewhat better have side effects I can't tolerate -- like making it hard for me to write. I'm not going 'oh poor me' here, I'm just saying.

Nicotine seems to be the only thing that medicates my ADD to any useful extent without making me less creative. I'm on a low dose of bupropion as well (that's Wellbutrin to you folks who pay extra for brand names), which helps a little with the ADD and takes the edge off the anxiety -- enough that I can sleep occasionally, at least -- but if I take a high enough dose to replace the nicotine's effects, I can't write. I seriously can't produce a word. I look at stories I've written and burst into girly tears, because I can't remember how the hell I did it. This, my friends, is Not Okay.

So I smoke. Constantly, stinkily, coughingly. Smoke while I'm writing, smoke while I'm drawing, smoke while I'm thinking about writing or drawing. Am I gonna tell you it's good for me? Jesus no. My lungs are like the bottom of your broiler. I can almost hear them crackle when I take a deep breath. I have no stamina, no wind, and I'm getting fat because of it. But when I stop smoking, which I managed to do for almost a year once, I am no longer a writer, and not much of an artist. Guess I'd rather die of emphysema than let all these stories die unborn.

Someday I'll have to find a better solution. Experiment with medications until I find a combination of doses that'll do the trick. But that's expensive, stressful, and uncertain, and it would require me to be willing to take time off from writing and drawing whenever my cocktail of happy pills turned me nonverbal or whatever. At the moment, that isn't an option. Someday, I'll have to quit smoking, if only because it's hard to make comics when you're dead.

But for now, I'm going to go buy another carton. Yeah, I'm such a martyr to my art. Puff. Puff. Puff.

Obligatory Blathering

It's pretty much obligatory to do this with the first post of a new blog. Ramble about it being the first post, that is. About why you're starting a new dealie, and why it's where it is. I'm following my studio buddy Luka, as it happens -- and hooboy, how to I make the link be over?

Still linky? No? Good. Whew, that was scary. It was like the linkness was following me home wanting to be fed. Like an enormous, stinky, friendly, toothy dog... wait, have I taken my meds today? *checks* ... Yes, it seems I have, and that means that the stinky dogness of the link that will not end is objective reality. Because if you can't trust pharmacology, what can you trust?

And now I must experiment with colored text for a while, making a rainbow of pure gayness. There isn't a very good purple, is there? I consider this an oversight. How am I supposed to bludgeon people with excessive information about my private life if I can't make a good rainbow? Blogger, get with the program! Purple is imperative!

• Bullet points.
• What the fuck.
• Bullet points?

Apparently!

1. Numbered lists as well.
2. Waitasec.
3. Aren't I capable of typing 3. at the beginning of a sentence
4. without a special button for it?

And now I'm lost, I don't even know anymore how many of these buttons I'm using. The quotes and the numbered list thing are lit up and it seems all that does is indent. Reckon that'll be handy if I ever want to indent things. Okay, make it stop now...

Hm, what else can I dick around with? There's a thing up there that looks like an eraser... I'm a little scared of it, but I have to know... ooh, mouseover explanations. Right, that's 'remove formatting from selection' -- not something you can actually demonstrate in a lasting form, but at least it's not 'take out a hit on me' or something.

And finally, 'add image'. Behold.






Oh fer bizarre. I can pick it up and move it around. That's gonna be sorta handy.


All right, I think I'm done dicking around with the interface. I think a coherent post about what the hell I'm actually doing here will have to be posted separately. I think if I try to put it in here with this nonsense, the nonsense post and the coherent post will fight, and I'll have to turn the hose on them. Then my whole blog will be wet. Nobody likes a wet blog.