Hello everybody and welcome back. My name is Maggie Ann Martin and you are listening to Oh Draft Podcast where I write a book in 45 days. I'm excited for y'all to be on this journey with me. This is episode 3 if you haven't completely caught up with the series.
During my first episode I really do get into character development and what makes my characters tick. In episode 2, I dug into setting and what a sense of place for each of my characters really meant. Today we are going to be covering outlining... Dun, dun, DUN! It's very dramatic for some people but I'm going to make it so easy for you today that it won't be a dramatic thing that you ever think is unattainable ever again... That's at least my hope when you come out of this episode.
Like I mentioned, this is a series that's going to continue to build off one another. My next episode is going to be all about creating a timeline, setting goals, and setting firm deadlines to stick to because if you are going to write a book in 45 days, it's going to take a lot of discipline and really making sure that you have your best foot forward with the right kind of schedule to plan ahead. So that's going to be a big episode next week.
Then I'm going to actually start drafting the book with you along on this journey. I'm going to be doing a podcast video diary every 10,000 words of this draft that I create. I am a young adult author, I have two books that are published right now, so typically with a young adult manuscript it's going to be anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 thousand words. So my actual drafting episodes will be anywhere from six to eight episodes long depending on how long the draft ends up being. It might be actually shorter. Sometimes I write short drafts and then go back and flush out details later. It really depends by book for me.
You will be along for that journey as well! I mentioned this last time but in case you are new and you are watching on YouTube my Chihuahua, Millie, likes to hang out back here despite my best efforts of getting her to go in another room while I film these. She is a Velcro dog. She will probably be in the background for the majority of these videos. Just setting that record straight right off the bat here. She'll probably pop in and out of screen, but she's very cute. So that's that's okay.
Now if you're a writer you have heard the question asked are you a Pantser or a Plotter? And so all that means is if you're a Pantser you like to write stories flying by the seat of your pants. The story comes to you and flows through you as you go and you don't plan anything ahead. Whereas if you're a Plotter you really like to have a detailed outline that you're following when you're going through the writing process.
Before I had published any books, I would absolutely say that I was a Pantser, 100%. Actually my first book that was published called The Big F was completely Pantsed. I really didn't outline that one because I had years to write it. It was something I was writing for myself. I was writing it for fun. I didn't have strict deadlines to follow so I was able to Pants it and it was fine. But when I wrote my second book, To Be Honest, I was on such a tight deadline for that one- I wrote it in probably two to three months- so I knew that in order to stay on track and be productive and meet my deadlines and goals that I needed to outline. And so that's when I started doing a ton of research.
You can find lots of great resources online on how to start outlining that's pretty much what I did. I did a quick Google search and was a little bit overwhelmed by all of the resources that I did end up finding. But the first one that I think most writers are going to recommend to you is the Save the Cat Writes a Novel. Save the Cat Writes a Novel is based off of screenwriting. Save the Cat's fifteen beat structure was originally developed for writing screenplays and then it got adapted in this book to be about novels. So sometimes you'll hear people plotting out their outlines using those fifteen beats that are established within that book.
Other times, you will hear people talking about outlining in an act structure. That's what I'm going to explore today for you all. I write in a Three Act Structure but you can write in a Three Act, Four Act, Five Act, structure depending on how robust your story is. If you're writing a fantasy or sci-fi, you might write in a Five Act Structure just because there's so much that happens and there's so much Exposition that you need at the beginning to explain your world. Whereas when I write contemporary, setting the scene and establishing your characters isn't going to take as long because it's based in reality.
I use the Three-Act Structure for that reason. It's a structure that is really common in every single movie you've ever watched, every book you've ever read- there is an opening, then there's the inciting incident and then the action grows to a climax, then the climax happens, and then there's resolution. That is a pretty universal structure for a story, but I'm going to unpack that.
I would recommend some really awesome YouTube videos that I continually go back to to go over this Three Act Structure. The first one I'm sure if you're familiar with Booktube that you would know Kat O'Keefe or Katytastic. She makes a really simple and engaging video where she takes the Three Act Structure and then she breaks them out into 27, what she called chapters, and so she kind of blocks out each act to have like a certain amount of scenes and she makes a grid and that's how she outlines books. If you're really visual like that and want things to be laid out in a really modular way, I think her video is a great place to start so I have that linked below.
Another great resource is by YA author Alexa Donne. She's written historical fantasy and a YA thriller that is about to be released and she has a great series on outlining and drafting really just check out her YouTube channel because she's a wealth of knowledge also, so I'll leave her links below as well.
As promised, I'm going to make outlining as painless as possible for you through my Three Act Structure Outlined Guide. Here's another plug and reminder if you would like to download my resources that I'm talking about in each of these podcasts, all you need to go do is go to my website MaggieAnnMartin.com/OhDraftPod and that's Anne without an "e"! On that page you will see a box where you can subscribe to my Oh Draft! newsletter. Once you're subscribed there, there's another important step that you have to take in order to get this email in your inbox. You will get an email that says "Confirm your subscription to Maggie Ann Martin."
Once you have confirmed that subscription, then you will get the email. Based on anti spamming laws the email company that I use makes you confirm that you would like to be subscribed before I can send you any content. So please make sure that you look out for that email that says "Confirm your subscription to Maggie Ann Martin," click that and then that that resource will come your way. I know I'd heard some feedback that that was a step that people weren't aware of when they were downloading earlier. So please make sure that you follow that step.
Onto my outlining guide! I promise I'll make it painless for you. We're going to walk through it right now, and I'm going to share with you what my process is for outlining. My Three Act Structure is kind of a hodgepodge of different things. It has come from a traditional Three-Act Structure and it kind of touches on a few of those 15 beats that are in Save the Cat Writes a Novel. I have kind of combined and taken from those pieces what I find important and when I find helpful, so if parts of this look familiar to you and parts of it don't, just know that this is what I have taken and adapted that makes sense to me that I feel like it necessary to plot. You can adapt and adjust along the way as you see fit as well.
I have this beautiful story arc graphic here for you all to look at. So you can see it is broken up into Three Acts and there are different plot points that happen in each of the acts. I'm really just going to kind of breeze through what each of the plot points are. just so that we're all level-setting and that we're all on the same page on this one.
Point number one is the Setup and the Status Quo. This is where you're going to introduce your main characters, establish the setting, and this is where the motivation for your character should be introduced. So, what they are looking to accomplish or what their main goals are throughout the book.
Next you're going to hop to the Inciting Incident, which is something you probably heard about in your English classes when you're studying literature. You've probably heard this term before. This is the event that comes along that shakes up your main character's reality in some way. When you're thinking about what this event is going to be you need to think about if this is going to be an external or internal obstacle, so if it's something that happens out in the world or if it's a conflict inside or if there's an antagonist there's a character that's coming in that is going to create the obstacle for your character.
The last point in Act 1 is The Debate or what I call To Journey or Not to Journey. Since this main shake-up just happened with the inciting incident for your character, your character now has to face the decision: do they want to go on the adventure that has arisen because of this inciting incident? This is usually where they choose yes, because if they choose no there wouldn't be a story... so this is their Tipping Point. This is their point where they decide, "Okay, I'm going to take action and move forward in my story based on the inciting incident." So that takes us through Act One.
Once we get into Act Two, this first plot point can be a big majority of your Act Two. The character is exploring this new world having fun and games or, what I call the Montage section. Your character's reality has shifted, their situation has shifted, and it's now time for your character to explore it. Yes, throughout this time there is going to be the first big obstacle that comes up and you'll explore how your characters hackles it. But I really think this is a time to explore character development, figuring out more about your characters and having fun with your story. That's why I kind of coin this one as fun and games as well as montage. This is kind of like the movie montage moment where your characters are going around like if they go to a carnival and they're riding the carnival rides and they're eating their popcorn and their cotton candy and it's all set to happy music. So I called this section the Montage.
Once you've gotten past exploring this new world having the kind of fun Montage, you hit the Midpoint. This is another really important plot point because this shakes up your character's views of the world in another major way and it's another place where a setback comes into play for whatever their main goal is- whatever their end their endgame is. Then once they have this new knowledge and things have been shaken up, they have to reconcile. What are they going to do with this new knowledge? How does this affect their journey moving forward?
Following that Midpoint, every story has this section where you're reaching your lowest, where you're at your crisis. You feel like All Is Lost. You know in movies when the main characters aren't talking to each other, they've broken up. You feel like there's no way they can get past this miscommunication and it's all over for them. And so really in The Crisis/ All is Lost plot point is the character's lowest. They believe there's no way to overcome the obstacle that was presented at the Midpoint and it is definitely the lowest part of their journey. Then you move into Act Three.
In Act Three, something comes to fruition that gives them a new sense of hope or gives them another reality check or reality change and they figure out "Hey, maybe I can stay on this journey and reach my end goal. Not not everything is lost." So once they're rebuilding their courage and their back on their journey, the action is building, building, building, until there's a Battle, a Confrontation, the Climax of the story.
This is when your main character comes in direct contact with whatever their obstacle has been along the way and they have to face it and overcome it in order to complete their journey. Obviously all of the tension and everything is building, building, building to this specific point. This is probably going to be a pretty important and pivotal scene and probably a quite long scene- one that you want to make sure is really executed well and that you feel like your readers will appreciate the payoff after all that building to the climax of the story.
And then the resolution, you're closing all of the story lines that have been open, you're tying all those knots, tying everything closed. You're showing how much your character has grown and what the journey has brought to them and their lives.
Now you have your basic Three-Act Structure in line. You've been brainstorming on this story for however long since the idea popped into your head, and you've really been thinking about "This could make a cool scene at the end!" or "This is the inciting incident that I know is going to kick everything off!" So you've had these thoughts and you've been exploring them without writing anything down and now is your chance to write down any sort of scene that you have thought about your characters going through. It could be as simple as "I really want them to like go to a baseball game and I want them to eat soft pretzels." It can be as simple as that- any kind of idea of a scene that you want your characters to go through. Just brainstorm them all. I'll insert a photo if I still have one from my draft of To Be Honest. I wrote scenes on sticky notes and I made that Three Act structure on my wall and I placed sticky notes within the Three Act Structure.
I just sat one day for maybe a couple hours and wrote down any kind of random scene or thing that I wanted a character to explore on a sticky note and put them all out on my table. I told myself "No idea is a dumb idea write them all down!" because none of them have to stay. That's how I created this Scene Brainstorming Step that I think is fun. And, you know, you're doing all this with the Three-Act Structure in mind.
Once you have all of those scenes brainstormed and written down, my next step will be taking those scene ideas and plopping them into the Three-Act Structure- figuring out where they fall under. Once I have them all placed where I think makes sense, then I go and say "Okay, where are the holes? What do I need to develop more? Do I need more in the climax? Do I need to take some stuff out of the opening? Is it too heavy there?"
You can either do that in the word document in the guide that I have created or do it like I did with the sticky notes and you'll be able to visually see if there's like an abundance of sticky notes in one category versus another and figure out where you need to kind of re-disperse those scenes or where you need to add some more scenes to fill out the rest of the Three Act Structure.
Once you have those all broken out into your structure then is the fun part where you have to start breaking up the action by chapters. And so if you listen to Kat O'Keefe, if you listen to her outlining video, she makes it pretty clear that per section in her 27 block three act structure there's going to be x amount of chapters and this, this, and this needs to happen in each chapter. I find that a little bit limiting. So when I go back through I feel like I can understand where naturally it's going to make sense to have a chapter break. I have some chapters that are longer than others. I think as the writer you'll be able to feel that out.
Another reason that I break it out by chapter like this is because a chapter can have multiple of those scenes that you have brainstormed in them or it can just be one. Or one of the scenes can go over multiple chapters if it's a big pivotal scene. So it's up to you as the writer knowing the context how it's all going to fit together.
Then I also like to break it out by chapter, tie it to whatever Three-Act plot point that it falls under, and then I also like to write what the hook for the end of the chapter is going to be to convince someone to keep reading. You know what I love most when I'm reading a book is when I tell myself "Okay, I can read one more chapter and then I'm going to go to bed." And then you get to the end of the chapter and something really juicy happens you're like, "I can't finish there! I can read one more chapter." And then you keep going. I feel like the really good books keep you saying "Okay, I can read one more, I can read one more," and so my goal is always to have some sort of hook before I write out the chapter so that I'm convincing people and keeping myself excited to continue on writing into the next chapter.
I hope that wasn't too scary, too much information, too daunting. I really think once you see it built out in the worksheet that I've created you're going to find it pretty simple to take and fill out on your own. Reminder: if you would like to download that worksheet you need to go to MaggieAnnMartin.com/OhDraftPod and sign up for my newsletter. And then, an important step, you need to confirm your subscription to Maggie Ann Martin and then the email will arrive in your inbox with the link to download. That is an important step that I have not laid out in previous episodes that I want to make sure everyone is aware of.
I also appreciated all of your feedback. I asked for feedback last time and I got feedback from those of you that this is a helpful format. Some of you would like to have authors interviewed, so I've already reached out to a few of my author friends to see if they would be interested to come on and speak about their drafting process. I'm going to have some fun guests lined up. So that's something to definitely look forward to down the road!
I am just so excited. This has been such a fun journey and you all have been so engaged so far which has been like the best surprise ever. I love listening to podcasts personally and so I'm excited that there are more people like me out in the world that like to listen and tune in and that you find this interesting enough to subscribe to and tune into.
On that note if you're watching on YouTube, please make sure to subscribe to my channel to figure out when the next episode comes out or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on Overcast, make sure that you are subscribed or following so that you get notified when a new episode comes out. Also. If you can give me a rating in Apple Podcast that is hugely helpful- a rating and review- that just helps me get in front of more people which I very much appreciate. So thank you all for tuning in.
And again, my name is Maggie Ann Martin. Thank you for listening to Oh Draft! Podcast, and I will see you in the next episode to talk about goals, timelines, and deadlines. Goodbye.