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.📌
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.
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.
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!
Was scrolling through AO3 and found this gem
Enemy to parent is a trope we have to popularise lmao
Spiderman being the most relatable superhero part one
need more parents as caretakers. thats the best thing ever
Yes 👏👏👏 Parental caretakers for the win!
Lo que hice mientras me aburría en clase // What I did while I was bored in class
so you know abt the "if they're my favorite character i'm gonna be excited to see them hurt" thing but.. am i the only one who gets Annoyed when characters i dislike get whumped? like. they didn't deserve the honor, what an injustice that this is canon 😅😂
Oh, yeah, I feel that too. Like the character I like was right there for the whumping, why would you choose that one?
also, do NOT tag them as epilepsy, seizure, photo-sensitivity, etc. people use these tags to find other people like them. by putting them in these tags you are endangering them.
Bruce Wayne's favourite children:
The nostaligia-fueled version of Robin Dick that exists in his head
Jason Todd's corpse
Cass
he/they | 🇸🇻 | I write fics and make translation in ao3
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