Outline October

 The leaves are turning, tea is brewing, and a chill runs up my spine. Not because of Halloween, but because NoQuWriCo is less than a month away! And I am determined to finish my third draft of Project: Emergence during the challenge. Over the years, I've learned that I cannot successfully write without an extremely detailed outline. This leads me to my personal challenge for this month, which I'm calling Outline October.

 

 The Problem

When I first started looking into how to outline a novel it seemed like everything was based around the 3 act structure with an inciting incident, a midpoint, and a climax. which is a system that doesn't quite work for P:E.

 

I attempted outlining too late into the process and the 3 act structure didn't work because I had already started writing without using it as a guide, so I decided to instead come up with my own method that was similar, but different enough that it would work for me where the 3 act wasn't.

 

What I did

First, I looked at what I had already written in past drafts, and figured out on average how long my chapters were, how much story was told in a chapter, and estimated how many chapters long the end result would be. I figured that Project: Emergence would end up being somewhere around 60 chapters, which thankfully made my math really easy. I decided what moment I wanted to be the very heartbeat of the story, and made that Chapter 30 in my outline.

 Next, I further divided the story into quarters, deciding what would be the decision that would tip the scale to make Chapter 30 inevitable, and what would be the inevitable outcome of Chapter 30. By writing plot point to plot point instead of Act to Act, I was able to get a much firmer grasp on the story I want to tell. 

 But That's Not All!

 

Ok, so I looked at what I'd already written, and figured out a system that would work for me. Now I need to implement it so that my outline is done and ready for me to actually write draft 3 during NoQu.

The good thing is that again, me deciding on 60 chapters makes my math really easy. I wrote a super simple overview of what happens in chapters 1-15, 16-30, 31-45 and 46-60. Then I went a little deeper and outlined 5 chapters at a time, further fleshing out what happens in each quarter. Now I'm in the process of writing each chapter out individually and detailed. The outline for Chapter 1 is 532 words, and I will likely get more detailed as I go.

October is 31 days long, which means if I outline 2 chapters a day I'll be done with my outline November 1st with a day of wiggle room if I slack off (Which I've been doing... whoops! But I'll likely catch up soon so it isn't that big of a deal)

 

If you're participating this year, how is your November preparation coming along? What does your outlining process look like?

If you aren't going to be writing next month, what are you enjoying most about the fall weather? (Or spring weather if you're joining in from below the Equator)