OMG OUTLINES!

Sorry for my teenybopper outburst there, but I’ve just spent a few hours today revising my book, now that I have character arcs – complete with necessary scenes, incidents, and internal and external manifestations of each stage of the arc. It went so much better than any of the other of my attempts at revision, I just had to tell you about it.

The pitiable thing is, this is a lesson I keep learning: first it was the story as a whole that I needed to either build or recognize the structure; then it was themes; now it’s secondary character arcs. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think it gets much smaller than this, so I’m excited to simultaneously start working on outlining book two.

And even though I ran out of time yesterday to start outlining book two, with the massive success I had with starting to revise book one, I’m confident I’ll be starting this week.

What I did for the character outlines was this: each arc has four points – think of it as beginning, rising action, complication, solution. Because of the complicated natures of these sub-plots, and the themes they argue, it worked well to have the characters overshoot their solution, leading to a complication and eventual return to the proper solution.

Then I figured out what would be going on internally and externally for each of these steps. What are they thinking while they try to work out this part, and what are they doing? Sometimes it’s obvious that they haven’t figured out their question yet – other times, not so obvious.

Then I determined one dedicated scene per point, in which they are the main character for that scene. Additionally they each receive an internal incident (a moment in which there is no scene, per se, but the narrator focuses on them for a moment, either in reaction to or preparation for another event) and an external incident, both reflecting what I’d already established as their separate manifestations.

Now, of course, these are not the only times the characters are focused upon: many times their actions and reactions, and dialogue, are foregrounded – and these too will often reflect their general moods at that point. But, realizing that real people are not controlled by one emotion or intellectual problem at all times until that emotion has been dealt with, most times otherwise the dialogue goes as it must to be natural and fulfill the needs of the story.

But what’s nice is that I have very firmly in my head what needs to be in the story to complete the three secondary characters’ arcs – and it’s easy to know what that need has been adequately fulfilled. So instead of reading through and thinking “I could put something here, maybe…They need to kind of act like this, right?” I can say: “Next is this part, where this kind of scene needs to happen. Good? Yes, good, I like it. Next, over here…”

Because, see, the creative part – the drawing of the objects – has been done. All I’m doing now is filling in the lines, and shading, and contouring. The overall picture is still fixed; but the nuances are yet to be put in place. And recognizing where those lines are makes it so, so much easier.