How Do I Outline My Story?

Hello, and thank you for accompanying me on this roller coaster of a journey. Let me catch you up to speed. So last week, I was pretty stressed because I had to meet a deadline, and today I’m pretty stressed because of another deadline. I guess some things never change. But no, really, at least I advanced a lot this week because, thankfully, I have the 30 points that I need to present to my teacher (almost).

Now, these 30 points are more of an arbitrary number that he decided. Although I think it is more in the vein of 30 scenes to give you an overall idea of your film. but before I even started to outline I had to do a lot of things, such as general research for the way some police procedures operated. I also had to do a little character work, plotting out very basic aspects of character arcs, most importantly their needs and wants, which allowed me to tap into the theme of my movie.

But really, the bulk of my work this week had more to do with plotting and outlining my story, making sure it worked. So I used this opportunity to try and write using Dan Harmon’s story circle. Which consists of 8 points (see example below).

But the real beauty of Harmon's story circle is the fact that it is not just a story structure meant to be applied to the whole of a screenplay, like Syd Field’s story structure, for example. Rather, this structure can be used to plot out individual acts, even scenes. Think about it as elements necessary for your story to be recognized as a story, but you have a lot more freedom to move points around, and you don’t always have to use all 8 of them.

If you want, I can write a little more in-depth about story structure, exactly how every point works, and how you can apply it in your screenplay. Also, I already have a post about themes, but I can also do a new one detailing a different way to work with them. So let me know.

Where am I currently at?

Right now, as we speak, I am finishing my outline for the 4 acts. This means that I used Harmon's story circle, which is 8 points, each for every act, giving me a total of 32 points. Well, not really because, as I said before, you don’t usually include all 8 points in every act of your story. But this has already given me a pretty solid base from which to add the rest of the scenes. Basically, think about it as making sure the story functions, dramaticaly speaking. And now that I know it works, it is time to tweak and add details.

The ones that I have the most complete are acts 1 and 2A. The reason why is that these two are fairly easy for me as I have it pretty thought out until the midpoint. That being said, I separated act 2 into 2 halves: act 2A and 2B, the reason I did it this way is because my midpoint basically functions as a drastic turn in the story, and it changes even maybe in genere, so it made sense to make a claer distinction. It is also much more manageable this way, and I find that it makes more sense to tackle it this way rather than just facing the entirety of act 2 as a whole. Plus, having a strong anchor point in the midpoint allows you to revitalize the story.

As of right now, what I am struggling with is a few things. First of all, I am struggling with the second part of act 2 and the whole of act 3. I know what needs to happen in both these parts because I have the skeleton of it with the structure; however, I haven't really delved that deep into the actual mystery, that is the details of how everything happens and how exactly it gets solved. I have to think of evidence they come across, how it is presented, and how the detectivesgo about solving it. However, the 3rd act, aside from having these same issues, I’m struggling to solve it, and I mean solve it by what the character's choice is at the end. Because the choice that your character takes in the climax dictates the theme of your movie, and the conflict can really go either way, but I'm not sure which to go. To me, this isn't super worrying; rather, it is a good sign as it means that the conflict is strong, and both sides have a compelling or strong view of the world.

How am I approaching the challenges?

So tomorrow, I’ll just try to polish up the details of the whole structure, going act by act, making sure everything works, and starting to add detail wherever I can. I’ll have my class where I will get some feedback, and I'll have to integrate that too.

But overall, I feel like most of the heavy lifting is done, at least I hope so. I know it is going to be far from perfect, but at least I will have something to fix, which is way better than just staring at a blank page, trust me.

I’ll try and lock down details such as the clues, the exact way the murders happen, and how to present them all. I’ll also start working on outlining some minor scenes that are essential for character development and their relationship. And I'll continue to document myself as best as I can and just generally try to nail down my story structure. And from there, I’ll have to delve deep into the need and want of my protagonist as well as the themes, and that will help me determine how exacly the story ends, and what are my character’s arc going to look like.

I’ll keep you posted

Hopefully, I was able to make my point across as right now I'm just really tired, so I really hope I made sense. Thank you again for joining me on this adventure. Remember to let me know if you want a detailed post about Dan Harmon's story structure or on how to construct themes. I’ll be seeing you next week, and thank you for reading.