So I set a goal to finish redoing the outline for my book by Sunday but it’s not looking like I will get it done. Although I made good progress. Mostly I got a boost by recording my voice in my car and dictating ideas and scenes and options. Then I type them up in the morning.
On that note, I’m really seeing that a lot of the outlining process for me is brainstorming options. The more options the better the story because it comes off more original.
The use of BUT and THEREFORE has also drastically helped. It really forces me to connect story beats with more consequential actions. Before I think my outlining would be more of random connections or even the dreaded “And Then.” I had no idea that “and then” makes for a boring story but after using the BUT and THEREFORE technique, now I see. And you can use the BUT and THEREFORE technique in any sort of story telling like blog posts and public speaking.
So now, I have plot points worked out based on an existing structure that works. I also have the BUT and THEREFORE helping me plod along. I have some characters, I’ve worked on and some situations. I also have a genre to help me get reader interest. It definitely feels like I’m moving along. I looked back at when the folder was created and see I started back in August 2019. That is a little discouraging. That I started almost four months ago and I’m still working on my outline. The prior big outline was done in October. So it takes me around a month to create an outline it seems. It would have been a lot faster if I just used an existing plot structure.
Another thing I’m doing while outlining is exploring the character’s voice and their fears. I read somewhere about creating character empathy you need a combination of things but one is a fear or desire that competes with another fear or desire. Especially something related to the human condition. For example, a character that wants to earn more money but has a fear of leaving the house.
So I started specifically exploring that for each character – that dual fear or desire that conflicts. It creates that inner conflict. One of the ways I did it was by talking in the first person. I would write almost stream of conscious and then talk about what I was worried about.
It reminds me of that movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I saw it recently and then after I analyzed it a bit more deeply. Both characters have a desire or fear. Leo’s character, the television star, sees his stardom fading. He is being cast as a bad guy. He is not recognizable in costumes. He is being recruited for Italian movies. He ends up doing the Italian movies. He gets married. It seems like the end for him. He literally cries thinking about it with a little girl.
At the end of the movie, Leo finds redemption sort of. He’s kills off the bad guys and then is invited to spend time with the younger more successful movie people. Its like two different stories. The action story is almost inconsequential to the human story of this actor who is trying to revive his career.
So I asked myself, who is my character, what does he want besides the main plot, the desire to stay alive?
My goal for this week is to get a treatment finished. From beginning to end. I want it to be like 20-30 pages long. I want to have the main characters analyzed. I want this to be all done by next Sunday. I guess I need to do about 3 pages a day.