Cut the Fat
The task of trimming fat is much easier in an outline of a few hundred words than it is in a manuscript of a hundred thousand, and you’ll probably find one of your most flagrant areas of fat accumulation is in scene transitions that recount characters moving between settings. In his breakout fantasy Elantris, Brandon Sanderson shows us how to trim these pointless filler bits by utilizing one of our most useful and invisible tools: the scene break.
Although Sanderson’s book is no lightweight—it weighs in at almost 700 pages—he does a good job cutting out the boring fat that could easily have doubled his page count. He uses scene breaks not only in the obvious places to indicate changes of POV or setting, but also to cut even seemingly innocuous segments, such as, in one instance, his antagonist climbing a lengthy flight of stairs. The result Sanderson produces not only trims the fat from his story, it also contributes to a sense of speed in his pacing. He could easily have written a short sentence that would have brushed over the antagonist’s climb up the stairs, but thanks to the scene break, he indicates the passage of time to the reader in a tight, snappy fashion that keeps his story rolling right along.
As you transcribe your outline, into Word, yWriter, or your word processor of choice, pay attention to the construction and flow of your scenes. Make note of places where you can use a scene or chapter break to create the suspense and rhythm you’re looking for.
Chapter Ten Checklist
Transcribe pertinent notes from your Extended Outline into your word processor of choice.
Weigh each scene’s effectiveness, strengthen those that are weak, and eliminate those that are unnecessary.
Divide your story into scenes and chapters at appropriately dramatic intervals.
Asking the Authors: Carolyn Kaufman
Bio: The author of The Writer’s Guide to Psychology (Quill Driver), Carolyn Kaufman has a doctorate in clinical psychology and uses it to teach college in the American Midwest. She also runs the Archetype Writing: Psychology for Fiction Writers website. Visit her at http://www.archetypewriting.com.
Can you describe your outlining process?
I write major plot points on different index cards (I prefer the kind without lines) and think of them as stepping stones. The cards are nice because you can start with just an inkling of an idea and add as you go. If I come up with something major that falls in between two cards, it’s easy to add a card. I can also discard and rearrange cards as necessary.
What is the greatest benefit of outlining?
As I said, I think of the cards as stepping stones. They help ground me and give me a place to put my proverbial feet as I work my way through the story. I’m less likely to end up feeling lost or confused about what to write when I sit down with the file each day. (I hate feeling lost and confused. I open the file, stare at it, click around in it, read a bit here and there, and wonder what the heck to write. Not productive at all.)
A quirk of mine is that I need to write the story in chronological order. I know a lot of people write scenes out of order, but that doesn’t work for me. The cards give me a place to write down the ideas for future scenes without actually writing the scenes. That way I don’t lose or forget material ahead of me as I work in my current place in the manuscript.
What is the biggest pitfall of outlining?
When you’ve done the work to outline a path through a story, it can be hard to go a different direction, even if you realize you need to as you work. Some of my very best plot points have come from characters doing unexpected things. For example, one key character who was definitely not supposed to die did just that. I did everything I could to get her up again, but she just... died on me. It ended up making the whole second half of the novel better, because it introduced crazy conflict among the other characters. It also created a reason for a second book.
Do you recommend “pantsing” for certain situations and outlining for others?
I have actually written more by the seat of my pants than I have with an outline, but I’m finding it harder to do that as I mature as a writer and recognize the importance of plot, theme, pacing, and so forth. Also, as I’ve learned to write for publication, I’ve realized it’s very difficult to come back and work as hard as I need to on a project that has little direction when I have other writing (often nonfiction) that does. So I go back to liking the flexibility of note cards. They don’t lock me into an unfolding story in a rigid way, and they leave me plenty of room to fill in the holes between the cards and write the scenes themselves in a spontaneous way.
What’s the most important contributing factor to a successful outlining experience?
Stay flexible and have fun with it. I like the way classic, organized outlines look, but I’m really more of an intuitive person, and I can get trapped by trying to make a traditional outline look nice if I take that approach. That is, I get caught up in the process of making the outline just so, as if I were back in school and doing it for a grade, rather than using it as a tool. So instead of trying to make a true outline, I keep in mind that this is a creative and sometimes messy process, and that it’s okay to draw little pictures on my note cards, or add passing thoughts, or color, or whatever will help me capture the ideas I have for that “stepping stone,” so I’ll remember later what I was thinking.
Chapter Eleven
Conclusion:
Using Your Outline
“The outline is 95 percent of the book.
Then I sit down and write, and that’s the easy part.”
—Jeffery Deaver28
Congratulations! You’ve now reached the end of the outlining process. After several months of diligent preparation, you’re ready to embark on a road trip down the Interstate and the dusty back roads of your story. You’ve decided on your destination, you’ve mapped your route, and you’ve packed your equipment. All that’s left is to buckle yourself into your desk chair and rev up your computer. Adventure waits ahead, much of it anticipated—but you can be sure you’ll encounter more than a few surprises. You’ll probably break down on the side of the road more than once. You’ll run into construction work and a detour or two. And you may decide to ditch the map for the occasional afternoon of exploration whenever an intriguing sideroad catches your eye.
It’s time to put your completed outline to use. You’ll refer to it every day before settling in to write, you’ll use it to reference events yet to come in your story, and you’ll use it to double-check facts for consistency. The beauty of it all is that when you sit down at your computer and the cursor starts winking at you from the depths of your blank screen, you don’t have to panic with the thought that you have no idea what to write. All you have to do is open your outline file and find the next turn on your map. Flip your blinker, and you’re all set for another day’s drive through your story.
For many of us, writing is all about tapping that sense of freedom—the promise that anything could be waiting for us around the next bend in the road. Some writers fear outlining will destroy that freedom by locking them into a set route. But the truth is just the opposite. Freedom is knowing you never have to stare down the blinking cursor and the blank page because you don’t know what comes next. You’re still free to explore all you want, but, at the end of the day, when the detour turns out to be a dead end, you can always return to the marked path you know will lead to your destination. With your route highlighted on the map, you’re free to put on your sunglasses, crank up your tunes, and let your hair blow in the wind.
The trick to using your outline to gain maximum productivity is remembering an outline is as fluid as you want it to be. When you reach Chapter Five and realize you’re missing a prime opportunity to deepen your heroine’s character by showing how she handles a spat with her stepmother, you can change the outline on the spot. Remember: the outline is a guideline, not a law etched in stone.
The outline is the tool of the responsible author who understands that story is as much about structure as it is ab
out inspiration. Melding these twin juggernauts allows us to create a story that flows from our deep inner wells of creativity and pour it into the mold of our outline. We could do this in retrospect; we could dump our messy, wonderful, uncontrolled inspiration into our first draft and edit it into a sensible structure. But by utilizing an outline to decipher, organize, and direct our stories, we can save ourselves both time and effort.
In a world where we have so many stories to write, that’s a tool worth taking advantage of.
Happy outlining!
Chapter Eleven Checklist
Stock up on coffee and chocolate.
Crank up your music.
Open your manuscript file on your computer.
Kick your cat off the keyboard.
Review your outline.
Rev your writing engines.
Have fun!
Note From the Author: Reviews are gold to authors! If you’ve enjoyed this book, would you consider rating it and reviewing it on http://www.amazon.com?
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Endnotes
1. Raymond Benson, “The 007 Way to Write a Thriller,” The Writer, November 2010, p. 25.
2. Jeff VanderMeer, Booklife (San Francisco, CA: Tachyon Publications, 2009) p. 202.
3. Sarah Domet, 90 Days to Your Novel (Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 2010) p. 15.
4. Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy (Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 1990) p. 29.
5. Simon Wood, “Does Your Plot Thicken?,” Writer’s Digest, January 2004, p. 38.
6. John Truby, The Anatomy of Story (New York, NY: Faber and Faber, Inc., 2007) p. 17.
7. VanderMeer, pp. 317-318.
8. Nancy Kress, “A Stitch in Time,” Writer’s Digest, May 2003, p. 13.
9. Robert Olen Butler, Janet Burroway, ed., From Where You Dream (New York, NY: Grove Press, 2005) pp. 87-88.
10. Charles Ghigna, “Quotes on Writing”
11. Margaret Atwood, quoted in Kristen D. Godsey, “Unlocking the Door,” Writer’s Digest, April 2004, p. 48.
12. Elizabeth George, Write Away (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2004) p. 69.
13. Don Chaon, “The Title Game Exercise,” quoted in Bret Anthony Johnson, ed., Naming the World (New York, NY: Random House Publishing Group, 2007) pp. 38-39.
14. L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon (New York, NY: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., 1923) p. 1.
15. V. Joshua Adams, quoted in Zachary Petit, “12 Literary Journals Your Future Agent Is Reading,” 12 May 2010
16. Card, Characters and Viewpoint (Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 1988) pp. 5-6.
17. Janice Hardy, “Bad Guys Who Aren’t the Antagonists,” 10 February 2009,
18. Pauline Kiernan, “Character Backstory Screenwriting—Make It Power Your Emotional Plot”
19. Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (New York, NY: Scribner, 1932) p. 154.
20. James Scott Bell, “Structure Secrets,” Writer’s Digest, October 2003, p. 19.
21. William Somerset Maugham, Mr. Maugham Himself (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1954).
22. Michael Connelly, quoted in Jeff Ayers, “In the ‘lab’ with Michael Connelly,” The Writer, October 2009, p. 20.
23. George, p. 19.
24. Patricia Highsmith, “My rules for writing,” The Writer, February 2008, p. 22.
25. Scott Edelstein, 100 Things Every Writer Needs to Know (New York, NY: The Berkeley Publishing Group, 1988) p. 22.
26. William Saroyan, “A Letter to a Young Talented Writer,” The Writer, September 1938.
27. Brandon Sanderson, “The wotmania Files: Interview with Brandon Sanderson (11/15/2005)”
28. Jeffery Deaver
Outlining Your Novel_Map Your Way to Success Page 14