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Choose the important events that will take your story from page to page. Write
these events down in order. For example:
1. Girl wants to wear a new dress on the first day of school.
2. Mama says there is no money for a new dress.
3. Girl begs her friend to let her wear one of her dresses. She
is afraid others will laugh at her for wearing her old dress.
3. Friend lets her wear one of her dresses.
4. Girl goes to school in friend's dress and shows off in front of the other children.
5. Girl forgets about her friend.
6. Girl tears the dress on the playground.
7. Girl returns the ruined dress to her friend, saying it wasn't such a nice dress anyway.
8. Friend is angry and won't play with Girl anymore because she is not a good friend.
9. Girl misses her friend. A new dress doesn't seem as important as an old friend.
10. Girl does something to make it up to her friend. They are friends again.
The outline is a series of steps, to show you where to begin, what progressions
you need in order to develop your plot, and how you end your story.
Step #1 is your introductory material, setting up the story problem and the protagonist.
The last step shows how the story ends.
That leaves the rest of the steps for you to work out to build and develop your story.
Write down the plot elements that you know you will use. Make sure that each one
moves your character closer to the solution of the plot problem.
This method helps you control your plot elements. Do not let any single scene
that you love lead you off on the wrong path.
This list helps you pay attention to the entire story. Be sure that each section
of your story serves the larger story. The outline helps you avoid distractions.
You are able to see and correct problems in your plot before you write the
story. It also forces you to consider the whole story, rather than to focus on
any individual part in isolation. It also helps you to balance the sections so
that one part doesn't get too heavy or too light in comparison to another.
Seeing your outlined story permits adjustments before you write.
Here are three stories.
A girl has to bring a basket of food to her sick grandmother.
A small boy wants to play football.
A little girl walks past a house with a big dog in the yard.
These are ideas, but they are not yet stories. A story must have a problem to be
interesting. What your character does to solve that problem is the plot. Look
at the same story ideas when problems are added.
A girl has to bring a basket of food to her
sick grandmother, but finds the road to her house
is closed.
A small boy wants to play football but the
other children say he's too little and chase him away.
A little girl is afraid of dogs but must walk past
a house every day with a big dog in the yard.
Each story is about a character with a problem that he or she must solve on his
or her own. The character must be clever enough to overcome obstacles to do it.
The obstacles that stand in her way make the story more interesting.
You can begin plotting with a situation or with a character. You will need both
before long. If bad weather threatens to close a road, it may be mildly
interesting. Once we know the road to Grandma's house is closed and the heroine
must reach her because she is sick and alone, the story pulls us in. Situation
and character are bound up together in the telling of a story.
A crucial part of your plot is conflict. This is the obstacle or obstacles your
protagonist must overcome to achieve his or her goal. If your story does not
have conflict, then it will not be very interesting.
Conflict can come from something outside, like a closed road on the way to a
destination, or it can come from inside, like a fear of getting lost.
Once you think you have an idea that you want to turn into a plot, summarize your
story in a simple sentence, as in the second examples shown. If you cannot do
it, try to simplify your story. Don't try to tell too much in one story.
Remember that a plot is simple; it is not the whole story - it is just the plan
of how your main character will handle a problem.
Re-read the second group of examples again until you see how to simplify an idea.
Answer these questions to help you plot your story.
1. Who is your main character? (This should be a single character.)
2. What must he want to accomplish? (This must be important to him.)
3. How much depends on his success? (What's at stake if he doesn't
reach his goal?)
4. What obstacles stand in his way? (This is conflict, and makes your
story interesting.)
5. How does he overcome them? (This will reveal his character.)
6. Girl tears the dress on the playground.
7. Girl returns the ruined dress to her friend, saying it wasn't such a nice dress anyway.
8. Friend is angry and won't play with Girl anymore because she is not a good friend.
9. Girl misses her friend. A new dress doesn't seem as important as an old friend.
10. Girl does something to make it up to her friend. They are friends again.
The outline is a series of steps, to show you where to begin, what progressions
you need in order to develop your plot, and how you end your story.
Step #1 is your introductory material, setting up the story problem and the
protagonist.
The last step shows how the story ends.
That leaves the rest of the steps for you to work out to build and develop your
story.
Write down the plot elements that you know you will use. Make sure that each one
moves your character closer to the solution of the plot problem.
This method helps you control your plot elements. Do not let any single scene
that you love lead you off on the wrong path.
This list helps you pay attention to the entire story. Be sure that each section
of your story serves the larger story. The outline helps you avoid distractions.
You are able to see and correct problems in your plot before you write the
story. It also forces you to consider the whole story, rather than to focus on
any individual part in isolation. It also helps you to balance the sections so
that one part doesn't get too heavy or too light in comparison to another.
Seeing your outlined story permits adjustments before you write.
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