Category: Advice

The Framework of a Novel

Outline plans (the framework) come in different shapes and sizes dependent upon your preference. Guidance indicates that spending a great deal of time on an outline plan is worthwhile in preparation for writing.

On one of the writing courses I attended there was an introduction to producing an outline plan. However the approach taken would be scratching the surface. The depth of your own plan would almost certainly be much more extensive than achieved here. But it might give some pointers to people who want to do an outline plan themselves.

This was an outline plan produced for a novel on one of the writing courses I attended. I haven’t done anything with it subsequently but it might give some insight into the start of the process. I would then spend much longer understanding the outline before diving in and commencing to write. Your Mileage May Vary.

Taken from the seven basic plots https://magic-phil.co.uk/2018/01/23/seven-basic-plots/. This outline is based on the idea of the quest which has this basic structure:

  1. The call
  2. The journey (archetypal figures)
  3. Arrival and frustration
  4. Final ordeal and last battle
  5. The goal, treasure, prince/ess

The plot can have as many subplots as you like. Subplots are similar in theme but do not have to be the same as the plot.

Every character that you choose to include will be overcoming something as part of their progress in the book.

Subplots can be resolved part of the way through the book.

Each character will have a subplot and this tends to result in a large novel.

The average novel is 75,000 words but there are some that are over 100,000 words.

When planning a novel this should be along monomyth lines.

(Joseph Campbell Bookfinder

the hero)

The Monomyth

The single story through which we understand all stories (Joseph Campbell)

  1. Hero in ordinary world
  2. Call to adventure
  3. Reluctance to accept call
  4. Encouraged my mentor
  5. Crosses the threshold
  6. Enters the special world
  7. Encounter tests, allies and enemies
  8. Cross another threshold: inner most cave
  9. Endure big ordeal
  10. Takes reward
  11. Flees back down the road
  12. Cross 3rd threshold – resurrection/transformation
  13. Return with elixir – a treasure to benefit the ordinary world

 

My outline plan to reflect this was:

  1. A 9 year old boy has to be selected for a future life and to be configured for the best fit for that life.The configuration is also constraining in that once configured realistically that is the only life that he could expect to lead from that point onwards.However he feels himself to be unique. He starts to fight the selection process.He would like to escape configuration and have a life outside the constraints of the normal rules.
  1. The boy is taken for configuration anyway and is unable to escape. Configuration is successful and he enters an apprenticeship willingly.One of the aspects of configuration is that it also ensures compliance with expectations around for example occupation and behaviours.He leaves behind his child life and aspirations. He forgets his desire for a life which is different to other people his age. He departs his home and we next see him in training.
  1. The initial frustrations with existence have subtly altered the mental pathways in his mind. This is unknown to him. Overtly the configuration has taken successfully. But over time he finds himself increasingly unable to adapt to expectations.He becomes increasingly concerned that his behaviour will be detected.He has seen others who have failed configuration disappear. Those who disappear are not seen subsequently.
  1. Eventually the problems of configuration are detected in him. However the delay has given him time to prepare.He runs.There is a running battle.Ultimately he escapes from the training zone into an area of “misconfigured” people.

    Although the mental configuration will not take in these people an alternative strategy is employed.

    These people are physically adapted which means that they still fit the social norm.

    Through subterfuge he is able to exist in this area of the “misconfigured”.

    He determines that members of “the misconfigured” have no value.

    They are not monitored – they are disposable.

    After a great deal of time with them he starts to learn something of the configuration process.

    Eventually he amasses sufficient expertise to reprogram some of “the misconfigured” who have so far managed to survive.

    In doing so he causes their deaths.

    However he is able to use their deaths to completely escape the training programme.

  1. This means that he has to go on the run again.Because “the misconfigured” have no value the deaths are not investigated. This means that he is able to obtain the freedom from constraint that he dreamed of when a child.However he gains this freedom at the cost of guilt for those he has killed.Outside of the training zone resources are in short supply and his survival is impacted due to the absence of food, skills and other resources.

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Beginnings pt. 3 – Beginning at the End

Photo by Dom J from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/notebook-writing-pencil-start-45718/

This beginning seems the opposite of what is expected – the first paragraph of the story begins where the story ends. The rest of the story is then leading up to this point.

For the author the advantages include knowing exactly where the story will end up and so carrying that clarity through the rest of the story.

It is often said that an effective beginning cannot exist without knowledge of what the end will be. In this situation the writer creates both in the same paragraph.

For the reader it can build an intriguing atmosphere which causes them to want to read on (if done well).

However if you deliver too much with the beginning there will be little cause to read on. An insufficiently fascinating end/beginning may cause the story to hit the bin.

This is further to my earlier blog posts on beginnings:

https://magic-phil.co.uk/2018/01/02/beginnings/

and

https://magic-phil.co.uk/2018/01/09/beginnings-pt2/

I have been relaying some of the items I learned from writing courses about the options available for beginnings of stories.

All of these are story beginnings which I have created for different writing courses so they are not examples of perfection.

When creating these beginnings I focused on one character “Dave the Effective Detective” and I got quite fond of him.

However if there is a story for him I do not appear to be the man to bring it forth. So this is all we are likely to know about him.

Beginning at the End

A fly buzzes around the lamp.  The lamp still lit in the middle of the day but no one will switch it off.  On the bed, the long cool body darkens in the heat and the missing space that once held an accountant’s brain is now sprayed upon the wall.

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Do It

What You Waiting For.

I was reflecting today that older people keep trying to tell younger people things are a certain way and younger people don’t listen.

This seems to have been an issue for many generations.

I remember that there was a saying when I was a child “he has to learn the hard way”.

In which the hard way was to insist on learning by experience when someone had already told you what the outcome would be.

When you have twenty years or so left to exist it comes to mind that learning the hard way is too time-consuming and painful.

It is clear that spending a lot of life relearning lessons that others already know, which they have learned already and are trying to show you is a waste.

It took until my fifth decade before I began to get a picture of what other people were trying to tell me. In many respects when it is too late.

One of these is nicely documented in the song Time by Pink Floyd “No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”.

I found that I waited and then kept on waiting for someone to tell me when was the proper time to begin.

For example since I can remember I have wanted to write a book, there seems no reason that makes sense.

Perhaps once it was an escape from a 9-5 job or something that seemed better than dealing with members of the public or whatever was right for the time.

But as boring jobs ended, and life improved the ambition remained.

It is now plain that I gave myself excuses: no punctuation or grammar background; gradual loss of imagination; daunted by the task and so on.

But mainly I was waiting, waiting for a time to start.

If there was ever a way of passing a message to someone four decades younger. Then it would be: do not wait, do what you want to do – now.

There may not be a tomorrow for you to try to do it in…