{"id":2809,"date":"2015-06-19T17:35:22","date_gmt":"2015-06-20T00:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/?p=2809"},"modified":"2015-06-19T17:35:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T00:35:22","slug":"how-to-write-a-novel-without-an-outline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2015\/06\/19\/how-to-write-a-novel-without-an-outline\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write a Novel Without an Outline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Writing<\/a>Some writers out there might have objected to Shawn Coyne\u2019s outline-centered approach in The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Staurt Horwitz would agree. He hates the term \u201coutline\u201d\u2026 so he calls his system a \u201cmethod.\u201d I wondered if this was just semantics, but after reading both his books, Book Architecture<\/a><\/em> and Blueprint Your Bestseller<\/a><\/em>, I was convinced he has a unique approach worth studying.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Horwitz is used to coming at a book, like Coyne, as an outsider intent on evaluating it. In other words, he assumes the writer has a draft and now wants to do know what revisions the book needs to make it better, or make it \u201cwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coyne was working for a Big Publisher, so he learned to distinguish a viable commercial novel from a lovely but niche literary novel from a novel with no obvious readership at all. Coyne\u2019s first loyalty had to be to the publisher, and, indirectly, the reader, so his question was: Who and how many would pay money to read this novel?<\/p>\n

Horwitz worked for many years a Book Doctor. That\u2019s a private content editor that authors who can\u2019t get Big Publisher\u2019s to buy their novels turn to in order to figure out how to make their books better. Or sometimes the writers don\u2019t even care about publishing their book. It\u2019s a private project, like a memoir or a spiritual declaration that they are writing for themselves. And then there are the deluded writers who think they can write something completely idiosyncratic, personal and possibly insane, like their True Life Memoir Novel about their Alien Abduction which is a Romance, Thriller, Historical War Story and a Spiritual Text for the New Cosmic Age as well as a transcription of Xthoww\u2019s Infathomable [sic] Word, all at the same time\u2026and<\/em> they are convinced this will be a bestseller.<\/p>\n

Horwitz\u2019s job is to please the writer not the reader<\/em>, even the demented followers of Xthoww\u2019s Infathomable [sic] Word. He doesn\u2019t ask if anyone would ever want to pay money to read his client\u2019s books, but only strives to help each writer achieve their own vision for their novel.<\/p>\n

In Blueprint Your Bestseller<\/em> he provides 22 steps to revise a book draft, and these steps include finding your one sentence Theme, creating a Target with concentric circles of how closely a scene illustrates this theme and then figuring out which of your scenes are actually hit anywhere close to the Target. This is a great technique, but it still doesn\u2019t tell you if your Target is the right one to aim for if you want other people to want to read your book.<\/em><\/p>\n

Say you think<\/em> you are writing a mainstream Romance, but your theme is \u201cTrue Love Isn\u2019t Enough,\u201d and your story ends with the couple separating. (Maybe, as in the original ending of Pretty Woman<\/em>, you have the heroine decide to go to college instead of getting her man.) Every scene in your so-called Romance novel could bullseye that target. It\u2019s still not going to fly.<\/p>\n

In fact, in Blueprint Your Bestseller<\/a><\/em>, he tries to apply the same advice to nonfiction and fiction. To me, the needs of nonfiction and fiction are so different than any catchall approach waters down what is most important to know about writing each one. It\u2019s much easier to see if a chapter is \u201con target\u201d in a nonfiction book than in a novel, for instance. Repetition means something entirely different in nonfiction than in fiction. Finally, nonfiction its own multiple genres, as does fiction, none of which are differentiated by his method. (I still found Blueprint Your Bestseller<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>a useful and worthwhile read, but for my purposes,\u00a0Book Architecture<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>which hones in on fiction with many case studies,\u00a0better matched\u00a0my focus.)<\/p>\n

However, although for me, the commercial viability of a book is an important consideration, it’s not my only consideration, or even (to my husband’s consternation) my main<\/em> consideration. We all know of books that are so formulaic they feel emptied out of real content. Indeed, these kind of books are what give us a horror of formulas in the first place. I want my stories to\u00a0be riveting<\/em>, but I also want them to be beautiful<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Charles Baxter discussed this ineffable feature of a story in an essay in his book Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

It’s customary to talk about effective language or effective dramatic structure in fiction, but almost no one ever talks about beautiful action. At first glance, it’s a dubious category. For years I have wondered how to define beautiful action in fiction, and whether it’s even possible. I don’t mean actions that are beautiful because a character is doing something noble or good. I mean actions that feel aesthetically correct and just–actions or dramatic images that cause the hair on the back of our necks to stand up, as if we were reading a poem. My conclusion is that it often has to do with dramatic repetition or echo effects. I think of this as rhyming action.<\/p>\n

…When we see two similar events separated by time, it’s as if we are watching an intriguing pattern unfolding before we know exactly what the pattern is. I don’t think that the pattern has to explain itself to be beautiful. It doesn’t even have to announce itself. In fact, I think it’s often more effective if the echo effects, the rhyming action, are allowed to happen without the reader being quite aware of them.<\/p>\n

I love this\u00a0idea of “rhyming action,” but how to employ<\/em> it? Horwitz, although he doesn’t call it “rhyming action,” gives examples from well-known novels and novellas that illustrate this\u00a0technique. As in his first book, Horwitz\u00a0shows the method in action at the simplest level first, in a Children\u2019s story, \u201cCorduroy.\u201d (This does make the method clear, though it also shows how even a Children\u2019s book is much, much more complex and harder to write well. This explains why so many people think they could \u201ceasily\u201d write a Children\u2019s book\u2026after all those books are short!\u2026 but they can\u2019t.)<\/p>\n

He applies the method to The Great Gatsby<\/a><\/em> and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix<\/a><\/em>, to Catch-22<\/em><\/a> and to Kafka\u2019s The Metamorphosis<\/em><\/a>, as well as to the shooting scripts for Slumdog Millionaire and The Social Network. (You can see how some of thee stories have a more exclusive readership and some have mass market appeal, so even here, he doesn\u2019t give any help figuring out whether your book will be commercial or literary.)<\/p>\n

All of this might sound as though there\u2019s nothing useful in his method, however, which is not true. Horwitz\u2019s method is useful in shoring up some of the weakness of the Coyne\/Bell model.<\/p>\n

Coyne, like James Scott\u00a0Bell<\/a>, often illustrate their Narrative Structure formula with movies. Many of the rules they lay down, especially Bell, apply well to mass market movies and novels with a linear structure: a single hero, a limited period of time marked by a deadline, an A-plot supported by a B-plot that kicks in at specific intervals\u2026.<\/p>\n

What about story that spans years, decades, or centuries? What about showing multiple points of view? What about flash-backs or flash-forwards? What about introducing cultures or whole species that are unknown and alien to the reader? How does the 15-point Bell Formula handle that<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Pretty much, it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

It gives you a place to start. But you need more<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What I love about the Horwitz method is that it shows how to handle complex novels: multiple points of view, multiple timelines, and multiple storylines. It teaches how to braid<\/em> storylines.<\/p>\n

I have only one more grievance with Horwitz: his choice of term. He calls the central feature of his braiding method a \u201cseries.\u201d But since every single novel I write is part of a series, in the usual sense of being part of a connected universe or even single narrative arc, I find this term more than distracting, I find it downright vexatious. It confuses me every time I see it. So, I\u2019m not even going to use that term in my blog. I\u2019m renaming it a Reiteration.<\/p>\n

Reiteration:<\/strong> The repetition and variation of a narrative element, such as a character, a setting, a relationship, a symbol, or a phrase, so that it becomes dynamic and creates meaning. Each repetition with variation is an iteration<\/em><\/strong> of the narrative element.<\/p>\n

Reiteration Arc:<\/strong> A Reiteration must have at least two iterations. If it has at least three iterations, it also has an arc. This can be a Narrative Arc, following the Aristotelian structure of rising and falling tension, or it could follow its own logic of ups and downs. Even in a commercial book, not all the Reiteration Arcs need be Narrative Arcs, if they are the storylines of supporting players, or if the type of Reiteration is a setting or a phrase. One of these Arcs will be your central storyline and the others will be supporting story elements.<\/p>\n

Reiteration Grid:<\/strong> A Reiteration Grid allows you to track all your Reiteration Arcs visually. You can use graph paper or an Excel file to write track each arc in parallel columns. My method which I learned from my father is to color code each arc\/PoV scene on different stick-it notes and put them in a notebook.<\/p>\n

Reiteration Target:<\/strong> Each Reiteration asks a question\u2014the same question in every iteration. The final iteration answers the question. Examples of Reiteration questions are, \u201cWho is the murderer?\u201d (Each clue is an iteration.) \u201cWhat is the heroine\u2019s secret?\u201d (Each instance the secret prevents her from declaring her love for the hero is an iteration.) \u201cWill the One Ring corrupt even the good-hearted hobbit?\u201d (Each time the hobbit puts on the Ring, or is tempted to do so, is an iteration.)<\/p>\n

Theme:<\/strong> Every Reiteration question relates to a single overarching question for the book, answered by the end of the story. This question is simple and timeless, which means that standing alone, it may sound clich\u00e9, as naked, timeless truths always do. Justice will prevail. Love is more powerful than prejudice. Compassion has a strength beyond mere brute power<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Next, I\u2019ll look at how this method can help us write a Genre book along<\/em> with<\/em> a strong Narrative Arc, which is of more interest to me than a literary novel that may or may not have a traditional plot or clear ending.<\/p>\n

Buy\u00a0\u00a0Book Architecture<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Blueprint Your Bestseller<\/a>.<\/em>
\nSign up for my Writer’s Tips newsletter if you would like to enter a drawing to win a\u00a0signed & numbered print edition (one of a limited collector’s edition of\u00a0250) of Stuart Horwitz\u2019s book.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some writers out there might have objected to Shawn Coyne\u2019s outline-centered approach in The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know. Staurt Horwitz would agree. He hates the term \u201coutline\u201d\u2026 so he calls his system a \u201cmethod.\u201d I wondered if this was just semantics, but after reading both his books, Book Architecture and Blueprint Your Bestseller, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577,579,580],"tags":[686,726],"class_list":["post-2809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","category-writing-advice","category-writing-craft","tag-outlining","tag-writing-craft-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}