Topic 9: Where There Was No Path
Making an outline really only makes sense for a limited series, but is a good
exercise for both the one-shot and story arcs within an ongoing series. When
I say outline, I mean outline and not a synopsis; that is, short little
"blurbs" of what happens in the story in the order they occur. Making the
outline will force the writer to do two things: to plan beforehand how the
story will develop and to think about how the characters will react and
interact to the situations before them. By limited series I mean anything
that would probably take longer than five minutes to read.
One-shots do not usually need an outline because the length is such that the
author can usually keep all the necessary details in memory (though for me it
would be anything greater than two pages). Ongoing Series do not need an
outline because the general "unifying theme" is usually enough; there is also
(generally) no "end" to work towards. "Story Arcs", or stories within an
ongoing series that are united under a single plotline can be outlined as a
limited series.
The outline is by no means static. Since it is a bare-bones account of the
story, you may find that an event that you planned to occur did not come out
the way you wanted it to when actually writing it. Similarly, new ideas may
serendipitously work better than the original plan, but you find this out only
after you write it. The "future topic" announcement below could be considered
an outline. Events can occur before or after you had initially planned it.
This may be confusing, so I'll use an example from December's End: For a
future story, I needed Kodachi in an combat strike team; however, she is only
16. So I needed a reason why she would be in the armed forces so that I
wouldn't have to wait two years of story time. I know the SDF is totally
voluntary; members can quit at any time, except for criminals "serving out"
their sentence. Which is why I had her arrested.
My original outline had "Kodachi arrested for stalking", due to occur in
Episode 10 (at the end of the story). However, I figured that Kodachi would
have probably heard something about what was happening with Ranma from her
brother, so I moved it up to Episode 6. But then I thought that Kodachi was
too good for normal policemen, so I had to think up Inspector Muramoto. I
introduced him, but then I realized that just arresting her wouldn't be that
interesting, so I had her escape the initial encounter. I knew that Episode 8
was going to be the New Year's Festival, so I thought that just about then
would be the right time for the arrest. I wrote Episode 8 and posted the
first draft to the mailing list, and then started work on the chase scene as
Episode 9. After I finished I realized that I didn't have enough for a
separate episode, but I didn't want to include anything that occured after, so
I ended up adding it to Episode 8.
[So let's work on the outline for the first episode. I usually work with
titles first, so let me call the overall series "Angels in Red" (guess what
song I'm listening to right now - hint: it has to do with blue dresses) and
the first episode will be "The Return".
Angels In Red - The Return
Everyone released from VR equipment
Introduce to "children" - note older than cast
Dealing with "memories" - TV show
Cast decides to stay together
Cast returns to Nerima; children to revolt against aliens
Parents/children scene at Tendo Dojo
Cast goes to sleep together
Deal with time (Kuno, Ryoga, Mousse, etc. in Nerima) - maybe Episode 2?]
The outline can have another beneficial effect. When writing the story, type
the outline topics on the file before starting the fanfic. This not only is a
visual reminder of the sequence of events, but allows the writer to skip a
specific topic if encountering "the block".
Future Topics
Topic 10: I Slept Through High School English (form, basic english)
Topic 11: Pass The Ketchup (the extras you include)
Topic 12: The Little Engine That Could (writing the thing)
Topic 13: Self-Editing For Fun And Profit
Topic 14: What Do You Know? (outside commentary or lack of same)