Blogger Notes

As I mentioned in the previous post, my outlines are extremely detailed. Sometimes they contain dialogue. Sometimes they contain descriptions. Sometimes they even have voice. Other times, it's just a jumble of thoughts with lots of "maybes" and options I could take the scenes. I thought it would be interesting to show examples from my most recent outline. One where the final draft* stays pretty close to my planning, and one where I left the outline vague and made my first draft writing harder on myself. It won't make sense to show you parts of the outline that changed completely during revisions, like when I threw out all of act3 and started from scratch.
*When I say final draft, I mean the most current draft as of December 14, 2008.

I tried to find my outline for The Art of Selling my Sister, but I wrote that before I started meticulously backing up my writing every night. The computer I wrote the early drafts of TAOSMS on died a year ago, and I apparently never backed up the outline. But fear not, I have all my material from Rhythm & Clues. This ms is sitting tight with my agent while we wait on feedback for TAOSMS.
Please keep in mind that I wrote my outline as a guide for myself to aid in first draft writing and not as some perfectly polished piece of prose.

First up, an example of working out all the plot/character problems in advance so the writing is effortless. This is the meet cute scene where my protagonist, Moxie, first encounters the love interest, Gavin.

Moxie reads an article in the paper about band auditions. She has always wanted to sing, always wanted to feel a part of something, so she goes. The auditions are being held in a really sketchy place. She wonders if this is a scam to murder her, but she refuses to be scared. About anything. She has to go into an alleyway and sneak into an abandoned building. There’s one room that’s lit by candles like in a séance. There’s only one person in the room: Gavin. His hair is cut like Zac Efron in High School Musical 2. He’s average height and lanky. Moxie doesn’t recognize him, but he doesn’t look scary. Gavin is thrilled someone showed up. He thought no one was going to. He's a bit anti-social and slightly intimidated by her rebellious appearance. Her hair is streaky and skunk-like. Lots of bleached blonde mixed with Goth black. All to hide Moxie’s natural brown hair color. Gavin tells her she can audition and she asks where the rest of the band is and he says, "If all goes well, you're the rest of the band." She laughs, this was a cruel joke, everything about her life has been a cruel joke so far. She’s about to walk out when Gavin stops her and says he’s serious. Says he’s been stuck home-schooled for years and doesn’t know anyone in the town even though he’s lived here his whole life. Moxie thinks this is weird. But lets it pass. He's evasive about her interrogation. It only makes him more intriguing to her. After all, she hasn’t been home-schooled, but she might as well have been because of her outcast status. Moxie tries too hard to stand out, while this boy goes out of his way to hide. Maybe they can learn something from each other.

A few things changed over the course of revisions. The first line about the auditions in the paper? That's now a full scene where Moxie spots a hand-written advertisement on a bulletin board at a grocery store where she works. The candles changed to paper lanterns. The part where Moxie almost walks out now comes toward the end of the chapter when she auditions, it's not included in this excerpt but it stayed in the novel. I'm a little embarrassed to have the Zac Efron comment here, but usually my outlines contain references to famous people to help me figure out what the characters look like, then during writing I replace with my more unique descriptions. I left it in so you could see how it worked below. The last three lines obviously can't translate into a scene and don't necessarily come in this excerpt. I often include general observations about the characters to help me remember what they're thinking, which I then use to guide their actions. So even if I don't explicitly state her backstory here, it's driving all the things she does in this scene.

I peered down at the address on the sticky note to make sure I was in the right place. The breeze picked up pace, blowing dust devils down the road like even the dirt wanted to escape the dreariness. Several buildings lined the path; their rundown structures yearned for restoration. Dusk’s shade covered most of the decay, turning the buildings all the same murky gray hue. I left the safety of my car and crossed the entryway into darkness, sucking back the gasps that wanted to betray me. I reminded myself I wasn’t scared. Debris from the building’s deterioration littered the floor, and everything smelled like moldy bread. A spark of red light caught my eye, flickering in the distance. A paper lantern dangled from the ceiling, twirling on a string, a small light bulb trying its best to stay illuminated. Up ahead, another lantern guided my way. I followed the glowing lanterns up the stairs like Dorothy’s yellow brick road until I found a guy sitting cross-legged on the dirty floor, fiddling with a laptop. He looked up when I entered, his eyes widening in surprise. His hair hung in his eyes, cascading around his face in long strands like all those emo rockers on TV. He placed his computer on the ground and stood. His lanky body nearly reached the low ceiling. With my 4’10” stature, I had no concept of height; everyone was taller than me. “Didn't think anyone would show." He flashed me a striking smile. "You didn’t make it easy.” “Really?” His brow furrowed and a slight hint of a frown crept on his lips. “I just meant...” I reached up and swatted one of the lanterns hanging low from the ceiling. “Most make their advertisement flashy. Yours looked like you used the board as your personal trash can.” “Got you here, didn't it?” He moved from his defensive position at the far end of the room and sat about ten feet away from me. Afraid to get too close? “I was curious,” I said, nudging a discarded sandwich wrapper with my shoe. “Besides, it takes a lot to scare me.” "Curious about being in a band?" “That too, but mostly about who would hold a band audition in such a strange place. I think I’m the only one who reads that grocery board. I work there, you know." "I know. You're a checkout girl." He couldn’t be lying because he had his facts right, but I'd remember someone like him. Someone so tall, with trendy hair and clothes that screamed mommy dressed him. Someone gorgeous in a way that wasn’t intimidating because it seemed like he had no idea. “I don't recognize you." "Yeah, we've never gone through your line. I think your hair scares my mom." I reached up to touch my strands. "It scares my mom too. That's kind of the point." For the last few months, I'd been dying my boring hair a dark black and then pouring bleach on random strands, creating a streaky, almost zebra-like appearance. It resembled that phase of Christina Aguilera's rainbow dipped ends, but I'd never admit the influence came from pop. "I'm Gavin, by the way. Gavin Tully." He approached me with an outstretched hand, too polite for such an informal meet up. His hand trembled, like he didn’t want to touch me, but he still felt the need to use proper etiquette. "Moxie." I snubbed him to spare him the horror of making contact with me. "And seriously, why haven't I seen you before if you've seen me?" I unhooked the least flickering red lantern from its string to act as a campfire flashlight. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I avoided getting tangled in the electric wires, which were pulled taut, straining to reach the power supply. "Moxie? That's a strange name." “It’s a nickname. And stop trying to change the subject, Gavin Tully." "I don’t go to your school or anything, if that’s what you’re asking." Was this guy not in high school? He either attended Milford Brook High or was some kind of archaic Internet predator who preferred post-its to chat rooms. "How old are you? Can I see your ID?” “Oh. I don’t drive. But I'm seventeen.” What teenager didn’t bother to get their license when they turned sixteen? He’s had more than a year to practice. “So,” he said. “What kind of instru—“ “Did you just move here?” I asked. Maybe that’s why I didn’t know him. “Um…” Gavin twisted his hands together. Avoiding such an easy question made me think he lived here. That would explain the intricate lighting. “You’re a bit strange. You know that? I guess the warehouse should have been my first clue.” “Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t really have any other options within walking distance.” Okay, so he lived elsewhere. I glanced at his laptop, realizing the reason for his evasiveness. He must go to some rich private school and didn’t want me to feel too blue-collar. “Right, the no car thing. What happened? Your chauffer couldn’t drive you?” “I—What?” He tilted his head to the side. After a moment, he said, “Oh, no. It’s just…my parents don’t exactly know I’m here.” Obviously this boy was trying very hard to be secretive. But he intrigued me, so I tried another approach. “I like boys who break the rules. I think we'll get along just fine."

I also thought it might be interesting to post a little from my chapter 1 outline. The final draft of chapter 1 is available on my website so I won't repost it here to reserve space. The outline below contains dialogue and actions that made it into the final draft in some form. An interesting part of this is the line that says, "The girls sneak out of school." See how vague that is? I found while writing that the more detailed I made my outline, the more I planned out in advance, the faster I wrote and the less things changed in revisions aside from the usual line edits/condensing. Leaving things to figure out later only led to me writing scenes with glaring mistakes, resulting in more extensive revisions. I'm not about to post my crappy first draft here because it's riddled with passive sentences and typos. (My motto when writing: I don't break for typos.) Anyway, you can compare this outline to the excerpt on my website. Sabrina is Gavin's younger sister, and this is her first day in public school. It was supposed to be Gavin's too, but he didn't show up, a fact that shocks and confuses both girls because it goes against everything Gavin wanted.

Sabrina glances in the box. Picks up the fork. Says it looks familiar. It has some kind of intricate design on it. Moxie tells her it’s from a certain restaurant. The night she and Sabrina met. Something dawns on Sabrina’s face. She tells Moxie they need to leave now. The girls sneak out of school. Moxie asks why. Sabrina says, “You really must not be dating my brother because you obviously don’t know him at all.” Moxie needs clarification, but the words sting. Sabrina tells her they’re clues. That the parents not letting her go to boarding school must have set him off (moxie is happy it’s not the kiss, though she’s still skeptical), that these must be clues. "He wants us to visit these places to find him. He must have realized you wouldn’t have figured it out on your own. That’s why he included me." That one hurt. Moxie asks where they should go first. Sabrina says, “Chronologically. We have to think like Gavin.” Moxie says: CANDLE STUB it is then.

Read the real chapter one here.

In case you noticed the difference between tenses in the final draft excerpts, the novel is told in alternating timelines. It begins in the middle of the story when Moxie learns Gavin ran away. The first timeline, told in present tense, chronicles her difficult quest to find him. The excerpt above with the Meet Cute is from the flashback timeline, told in past tense, which reveals the reason why Gavin ran away and why it may or may not be Moxie's fault. Both R&C and TAOSMS utilize this structure. It's not confusing when you read the books, I promise.

I hope that gets a good idea of my outlining methods and how it changes through drafts. I have much more detailed parts of my outline for scenes that appear later on in the novel, but I can't post them because it would spoil too much. (Like the kiss scene! That one is the most detailed in my outline). And I also had parts of the outline that needed to be thrown out immediately when I came to them. I'm experiencing the same thing with my current WIP. Nearing the end of the first draft, I realized my last few scenes didn't work anymore. I'm currently mulling over a replacement ending.

Next week, I'm going to continue this series and discuss the differences between outlining a novel versus a TV pilot/screenplay. I have some experience with pitching television shows and writing TV bibles. More on that later.