222: The 15 Minute Outline

 

If you want to have some kind of outline for your novel but don't want to overcomplicate it, this simplified outline could work for you. In this episode, I share how to create a 15 minute outline, which combines a few aspects of the snowflake method with the 3 act structure.

 ------

- Click here for ways to work with me + a free character profile template: www.thekatiewolf.com/info

- The last Tuesday of the month is a Q&A episode! Submit your questions for me HERE.


- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@katiewolfwrites

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiewolfwrites

 

 

The 15 minute outline

 

Hi friends, welcome to Your Big Creative Life podcast. I recorded, oops, my camera just fell. I recorded a TikTok video about a kind of a 15 minute outline. And in the video, I talk about a couple of important points that are like good to figure out if you just want to do a little bit of planning for your outline or for your book, but you don't want to do like a total scene by scene, chapter by chapter, super in-depth outline. And I wanted to expand on that a bit because this is still, the episode that is going to be called to outline, but there are a couple of other things that I think can be helpful along with what I mentioned in that video. So anyways, don't worry if you haven't seen that video, but I just wanted to share what inspired this. I've been thinking a lot about this because... I just recorded an episode a couple of weeks ago that was on permission slips. And one of the permission slips that I talk about in that episode is just giving permission to people who don't want to figure out the entire book before they start writing, giving permission to those writers that it's okay. It's okay to just figure the story out as you go. But I do think having a couple of points nailed down can assist you in just providing a tiny bit of a roadmap of where to go. I am someone right now who is a bit of a hybrid writer where I don't like to do a ton of outlining or figure everything out, but I do pinpoint a few things. And I don't know, it just, I've just found it helpful.

So that's what we're going to talk about in this episode. And honestly, even if you are a big plotter where you do like to do the scene by scene things, you know, hopefully this episode will still be helpful for you. And maybe it can give you a good framework to work from. Like you can definitely take this 15 minute outline that we're going to talk about and then expand it and do even more developing and brainstorming and outlining before you start. Okay, so I think that's all I... Oh, one other disclaimer I always like to add. There is no one method for outlining that's like the best or the correct way to do it. That doesn't exist. Every writer has their own process. But this is just one that I kind of like because it, again, it allows you to pinpoint those few things, but it doesn't give you so much structure where you can get lost in the weeds or it can take you a year to do this outline, like we want to avoid that. Before I get into the 15 minute outline though, I do just want to mention I have a couple of openings this spring still for editing. You can go to the link in the show notes. That is, you can click it on all the ways to work with me, including the first chapter review, all of my writing workshops, coaching and editing.

For editing, I offer two types of services. The manuscript evaluation gives you feedback on characters, plot, pacing, world building, if that's applicable, just all those story elements. I leave comments in the manuscript and then write an editorial letter for you. And then copy editing cleans up grammar, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, just like everything grammar related in order to give you a polished manuscript. So you can check the link if you want to get more information about editing. I have like a sample editorial letter on my website so you can see what it might look like to get editorial feedback. And then also for the six-month coaching program, let me look. As of the time I'm recording this, I have one opening for this. Sorry y'all, I'm looking at something while I'm talking. So basically this is a six month program where you and I work together and I support you in the process of writing your book. There's coaching calls, there's editing on your pages along the way as you write. You have access to this voice app where you can check in with me and send me messages Monday through Friday to get help, support for accountability purposes, to keep yourself on track. and more that's included in that. And so you can head to the link in the show notes as well if you want information about the six-month coaching program.

Okay. I just have to say real quick, I mean, this is a moment of transparency and vulnerability. I will say that I've shared about this before on the podcast that my new client like inquiries have been down since ChatGPT kind of exploded. And I try not to think about that too much because it makes me sad when I think about it just for the state of writing and publishing and editing generally, not just like me personally and how I'm impacted. And of course, I can't say for sure that that's why, but it is noticeable that it's occurred. And so something I've had to realize lately is like I've got to get more, I guess, aggressive about promoting myself and mentioning my services. So if it feels like I'm selling more on the podcast or on social media, it's because I am. In the past, what has worked is just a lot of kind of attraction content marketing where like I just give a writing tip and then I kind of just like let it be. And then people naturally are drawn to like reach out to work with me. And that still does work. I still am getting clients that way.

But I think I've just realized I need to be more intentional about letting people know like, hey, I offer services. I can edit your book. I can coach you. Hear all the ways that we can work together. So I've got to be a little bit more like intentional about letting people know. So anyways, it's a moment of transparency for I'm a business owner. Okay, so let's get into the 15 minute outline. This is going to be a combination of two approaches to outlining and brainstorming. And the first is the snowflake method developed by Randy Ingermanson. And then the second is the three-act structure. And let's talk about the snowflake method first. So this is, again, a... method developed by this guy Randy. And how you start with the snowflake method is you come up with one sentence to begin with that explains like what your book is about. And it is very difficult. If you have not tried this yet, it can be difficult to distill everything that your book is down to one sentence. But I have found in my experience, it is much easier to do this before I start writing or like very early on as opposed to at the end. For some reason, once I've written this whole book and I'm aware of all the complexities and the twists and the characters and the scenes, it becomes much more difficult. Whereas at the beginning, it's like, okay, this is kind of what I want to write about. Okay, cool. So come up with one sentence.

I talk about this in my idea to book online course that I have for sale. And I think the example I give in that, one of the modules related to brainstorming or whatever, is like a high school senior must rid her town of demons when a portal to hell opens up in her city or something, you know? So it's like, it introduces the character. It doesn't say their, you don't have to say their name if you don't want to, I guess you can. And then like what they're doing, what's at stake. You could include that. Must rid her town of demons when a portal opens before all hell breaks loose. It's kind of a ridiculous thing. I don't know. Y'all, I just, I have to share too. I just finished my edits to my book, to my book. My agent and I have been doing one final round of editing and I just finished it and my brain is mushed. So if I stumble over my words, that's why. Okay. So that one sentence, that is what starts the snowflake method. Then what you do is you take that one sentence and you expand it into a paragraph. So this is where you get to add a little bit more complexity in terms of what happens. Now, this is not something formal that you're ever going to submit anywhere. It doesn't matter if it's polished. You can decide what this looks like if you just, even if you do like four sloppily written sentences, that's fine. Even if you have a paragraph with eight sentences, it's fine. It doesn't matter. But the point is just that you're expanding on that one sentence that you have and expanding it into a full paragraph about the story.

Then the third and final step for purposes of this outline is you take that paragraph and you look at your main character and you write a page or just a couple of paragraphs, whatever, about your main character. Giving yourself like an opportunity to really dive into who this person is, what they're working towards, their goals, and just thinking about like their place, their role in this plot that you've developed. You do not have to get super specific with this. is not you figuring out their entire backstory or everything about them. But I think at minimum, it's helpful to understand what they want, what they're working towards, and a bit about their personality, right? Like who this person is, their character arc. So what lesson did they learn or like how do they change and grow over the course of the book? And yeah. whatever else you want to include about your character. So the snowflake method does continue from there, and you can just Google snowflake method if you want to get a deep dive into this process and figure out where to take it after that point. But for purposes of the 15-minute outline, I think that's good enough. I'm just going to stop there. So you have your one line, you have a paragraph. and you have your page about your character.

Now, in addition to those three things, I want you to take a couple of, like take some inspiration from the three-act structure, and I want you to identify three points in your book. The inciting incident, the midpoint, and the climax. The inciting incident is something that happens around the 10-ish, 10 to 15% mark of your book, And this is what sets the main character on the journey that they're going to take in the book. And journey doesn't have to mean obviously like a physical journey that they're taking or they're traveling somewhere, but just like what kicks things off, what sets things in motion for your main character. A very common type of structure that you will see in fiction if you start to analyze this is The first chapter often shows the protagonist where they are, like the moment before everything changes, so that we get a sense of their life, their relationships, what they're like. And then something happens, boom, it's the catalyst for everything else that's going to happen later in the book. Then we have the midpoint. And the midpoint is I mean, it sounds like obviously the 50-ish percent mark of the book. And why I think it's good to identify something that happens at the midpoint, even if it's not something massive, but just figuring out something, is because a lot of books lag. in the middle. This is a very, very common thing to happen. I notice this all the time in books that I read, not all the time. I notice it sometimes in books that I read. I notice it for sure in client manuscripts. It's just very common because we've got the catalyst in the beginning, the characters going on the journey. It's all exciting, boom, boom, boom.

And then that like initial momentum kind of wears off and the pacing really slows down. And we don't want that. Even for slower genres, even if you're just writing a slice of life kind of quiet novel, there's still something that happens in the book, right? So think about something that could happen at the midpoint to kind of shake things up a little bit. It can be something massive, it can be something small, but just identifying something can be good to give your novel that bit of structure in the middle. Then the final point that I think is helpful to identify is the climax. And this is something that I think most people are familiar with. It occurs like around the 80 to 90% mark of the book. But basically, if you picture like an upward trajectory, right? Imagine a graph, a roller coaster, whatever you want. Things are escalating, things are moving, they're getting more intense, the character's learning something, big things are happening, and then boom, there's this pivotal moment. where everything comes to a head. That's the climax. And then we have the falling action and the resolution after that, where the roller coaster or the graph starts to like trend down and then the book ends. So this, the climax, I'll be honest and say that when I'm identifying the climax, like I don't really have a much idea of what it is. Sometimes I have an image that comes to mind, sometimes I have like a sentence, that's it. But I just know kind of like, I know where things are heading in the book, which makes it easier to then think of what everything that comes before, because I have to understand what is like leading up to this moment.

Now for all of these things, inciting incident, something that happens at the midpoint, the climax, you can just jot down a list of possibilities here. You can do a bullet point. If you just have a couple of things you're thinking about but you're not really sure, that's fine. Just come up with a bullet, you know, bullet points of some possibilities. So if you're thinking about the midpoint and brainstorming that, for example, what are some possibilities based on what you know so far of the book? What are some options? Same with a climax. What are some options? Now, I want to issue a note here that most of this... None of this is set in stone. The purpose of an outline is not to provide a map where like you have to follow this to the letter. Things often do change. As you get in and start writing, you realize that what you envisioned originally no longer makes sense and you have to adjust and that's a good thing. So never like think of your outline as some sort of Bible where like you have to follow or some sort of law where you have to follow it to a T because you don't. These are just, this is just a framework, it's just a roadmap to help you as you think through this story and start to write it. That's really all it is.

So if you have those things, the couple of points from the snowflake method, the one sentence turned into a paragraph, and then the few paragraphs or one page, whatever, summary of your main character, in addition to finding out or figuring out what the inciting incident, midpoint, and climax are, you're in a really solid place. And again, it's not going to take you too long, especially if you've been really thinking through this book and it's been sitting in your head for a while. This might not take you very long to do. And then you can give yourself permission to actually start writing. But again, like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, if you're someone who wants to do a lot more brainstorming after this, then sure, you can take those points that you developed and really flesh them out further and start to go scene by scene by scene by scene if you want to, fill in all the gaps about what happens before the inciting incident, between the inciting incident and the midpoint, between the midpoint and the climax, and then after the climax and the falling action and the resolution. You can identify all those things if you want to. But if not, fine. And if you're someone who is so against outlining and brainstorming and you just like want to take a piece of this or two, totally fine. This is a mix and match, plug and play kind of a thing. You can do as much or as little as you want to figure these things out.

Now, I was on a coaching call recently with a client where she just purchased like a one-off coaching call. So we weren't, I wasn't working with her in the six-month program. And I was asking her some questions because she was in the process of just starting to brainstorm. She kind of knew what this book about, was about, but not really. So I was asking her some questions and, trying to get at like what she, what this book was going to be about, or at least what she had identified. And she didn't know. I asked her a couple of questions about the world and the plot, and her honest answer was like, I don't know. I haven't decided yet. Which is fair. Like that's a fine place to be. That's how every story begins is just wading through this uncertainty of like, well, is it this thing or is it this thing? I don't know. But my biggest advice for being in that phase, if you're like before the step before the 15 minute outline and you're like, I don't even know what this book is really. Like I can't even do a full paragraph about the plot yet. Give yourself some permission to just brainstorm. Let your mind wander, put a timer on it, try and make some decisions about what you want the book to be. And with this, if you really are stressed about this, or it feels like you're just dragging on and you can't make a decision, or maybe you're fearful of making the wrong choice, give yourself a deadline of when you need to make those decisions by. Because clarity often comes from action.

So you might not get clear on what this story is or isn't until you start doing this kind of outlining work in the 15-minute outline or until you start writing the book. But you're never going to know that until you actually dive in. So sometimes you just have to pick the best option that looks like the best or feels the most exciting to you and just go with it. Just experiment with that. Pretend that the decision has already been made. Boom, done. You're going this way. You're proceeding with this storyline and see. how it feels. If you get a ways down the road and realize that's not it, you can backtrack and revise. So just remember that's always built into this process. Like it can feel so, it can feel so important to nail down everything at the beginning, but that's not, it doesn't work that way. There is flexibility built into this. And so give yourself that permission to just play a bit and brainstorm and let your mind wander and see where things go. And like I mentioned before, you can always come up with some bullet points for these if it feels like, well, I don't know what happens at the midpoint. Okay, we'll just do a brain dump. Come up, make yourself come up with a list of five to 10 options of things that could happen and then go from there. So, okay, well, happy outlining. I hope this is helpful and not too overwhelming. It might, and if it takes you more than 15 minutes, that's okay. don't stress about the time too much.

Okay, so like I mentioned earlier, I just finished my edits and I feel, I don't even know, I'm gonna have to listen back to this episode. I honestly don't even know if any of this made sense. Again, my, I just, my brain feels mushy. But I sent the edits off to my agent and I feel really good about it. I just hope this is it. I just hope that we're able to go on submission after this. I think we will. Oh my God, I'm like scared to even like, I don't know. I will, no, I was gonna say I won't tell y'all, but I will, tell y'all when I'm on submission officially. I'm recording this in mid-February, so I might even be on submission when this episode comes out. Probably not, because it usually takes my agent a little while to get back to me, so I don't anticipate it'll be that quick, but We'll see. Wish me luck. All right, thanks for listening. Thank you so much for listening. For more tips, advice, and motivation, check out at Your Big Creative Life on Instagram, or you can follow me at Katie Wolf Writes on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help other people discover the show. See you next week.

 

 

Katie Wolf