Writing the Rough Draft

I like to use this outline form to help me organize my random ideas about scenes and characters into a story. The important thing to remember about using an outline is that it exists to serve you; you don’t exist to serve it.

Don’t feel compelled to fill out the blanks in order. Write what you are most certain of first, and come back to elements that require more thought later. Discard parts of the outline that don’t clarify your ideas. Stop filling the form out when you feel sufficiently inspired to write -- People want to read your story, not your beautifully completed outline. Below are explanations of the elements of the rough draft form. Click on the phrase "Go to Outline Form" that appears at the bottom of the page for a copy you can print out and use.

1. Title

Although this element appears first in the rough draft form, this is usually one of the last lines I fill in. I like titles that directly quote lines from the story. Be warned, though, that using story quotes as titles can sound hokey if the story seems to be written merely as an excuse to use a certain line.

2. Description of Main Action:

Under this heading write a brief description of the events of the story. For example, here is the description of the main action in Mylochka’s "La Belle Dame:"

While the Enterprise is on leave at a mysterious planet suffering from a rash of vampire-like murders, Chekov must choose between a beautiful woman whom he finds himself irresistibly drawn to and his duty to Star Fleet. (Last sentence omited to protect the ending.)

Write this brief plot outline in order to clarify the story's focus in your own mind. This should discourage you from wandering off into non plot-forwarding tangents (Even using this discipline, it's a struggle to keep my own plots more focused and linear than a Twin Peaks episode.)

3. General description of form:

Identify the genre that your story falls into. Is it a comedy? tragedy? action-adventure? romance? supernatural thriller? unabashed angst-fest? The purpose is to clarify your focus. If you want to write a comedy, something funny should to happen. If you're writing tragedy, you’d best think up something tragic.

This isn’t a question that you’ll need a rocket scientist's help to answer. You should know immediately what kind of story you want. However, mentally fitting your story into a genre will give you many clues as to the sort of tone, mood, scene, actions, and characters readers will expect in your story. You have then only to decide how you will fulfill or frustrate their expectations. It's a mental starting point.

Knowing the genre will help prevent you from starting a story as a tragedy and finding it has ended up a comedy.

4. Prior Circumstances:

I highly recommend you take time to think about this. What has happened between your primary characters a month, day, or an hour before the events you describe? Which characters have had good relationships? Which ones are enemies? What did each one think of the others upon their first meeting? Knowing this sort of information helps you create richer more realistic characters and scenes.

Even when writing fan fiction, in which much of the background work has already been done, take time to consider the state of events and character relationships just prior to the beginning of your story. Knowing where to begin can be quite difficult. A list of prior circumstances can help you determine what elements of exposition the audience will need immediately, and which can be recalled later in character flashbacks, if at all.

5. Theme:

Although fan fiction tends to put emphasis on character and action rather than the development of strong themes, it doesn’t hurt to spend some time reflecting on the underlying message of your story. What sort of general moral principles do the actions of your characters seem to promote by example? Courage requires sacrifice? Friends are more important than money? Never give a sucker an even break?

As with deciding on a title, this is another element of the outline that I do not immediately write down. I tend to pencil in a phrase and modify it several times as the general outlines of the plot and the inter-relationships between the characters coalesce in my mind.

6. Cast of Characters :

Ah, yes! Another one of the fun parts! These lines, I usually fill in right away. Who do you want to be in your little drama? Who will play the parts of hero and villain?

After you’ve created a simple list, I recommend you fill out a character sheet on each. It asks for the following information:

Character Sheet Name:__________ Age: ___________ Height: _________ Weight: _________ Eyes: ___________ Hair: ____________

Although readers of your fan fiction will already know what most of the characters look like, don’t omit descriptions. Fans never tire of descriptions of chocolate brown eyes or delicately pointed ears -- that’s one of the things that makes them fans.

Be sure you know how large or small characters are in relationship to each other. Many actions are dependent on relative size. While nicely done, original, and accurate descriptions are the icing on the fannish cake of fiction, inaccurate depictions of characters can ruin your credibility.

Family Background:

Education:

I feel quite safe in assuming no one reading this sprang fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. Each of us has a past that shaped who we are. A realistic, fully developed character has the advantage of such motivating information. Was her/his family rich or poor? Was s/he the favorite or the black sheep? What do his/her parents and/or siblings think of him/her? Did s/he do well in school? What were his/her nicknames?

Description of Personality:

Motivations:

Don’t be satisfied with writing a stereotype. Think about how your characters' minds work. What events and encounters made them the person they are? What goals, desires, and/or fantasies drive them forward or hold them back in life?

7. Setting:

Just as it is important to know what your characters look like, it is also important to know the details of the location or locations you have chosen for your story. Take time to create a fully developed setting that has realistic animate features as well inanimate features. For instance, to give a reader a picture of the room I’m in right now, rather than giving only the bare details of chairs and computer equipment present, it would be more accurate and interesting to mention the housefly buzzing at the window and the occasional dog wandering in the open door.

Know what your setting looks like in detail. Share this information with your reader.

8. Conflicts:

Despite (or given) the example of a notable Science Fiction TV series I could name, good drama requires forces in conflict. Something needs to be at stake in order to keep the reader’s attention. Will the villain succeed or fail? Will the hero live or die? Will the couple remain together or break up?

List persons or events that are at cross purposes in your plot. What forces are present to potentially prevent your main character from achieving his or her goal? In order for your story to have dramatic tension, you must provide some road blocks on your protagonist’s golden road to success.

9. Narrative (beat by beat recounting of plot):

The narrative is, in simple terms, all the things that happen in the story, listed point by point. Here is the place to really roll up your figurative sleeves and go to work.

When I am writing, I usually try to first do a rough blocking in of the events of the story, answering three main questions: "How does the story begin? What are the three most important things that happen in the story? and, How do I want the story to end?

(As Jane Seaton and I can tell you from our experience in writing "Friend in Need," it is very, very, very helpful to know where you’re going to end up when you begin the story. Writing a story never knowing how it’s going to end can be very... adventurous. In this case do as I say and not as I sometimes do. Don’t begin a story until you know how it’s going to end. Most of the poor unfinished stories sitting on neglected disks in my computer room were begun without conclusions in mind.)

After you have a rough outline, continue to refine it. Add plot twists and details as they occur to you. When you find you’ve got so many details written your outline is beginning to sound like a story, stop working on the outline and write that story, kid! We’ll be waiting for it eagerly!

Go to Outline Form