When you write a book, you will receive criticism and edits and then you will have to perform surgery upon it, and sometimes this surgery is light — like, a stitch here, a biopsy there — and sometimes it’s the kind of surgery chirurgeons did during the Civil War where they’re just like FUCK IT, CLEM, YOUR WHOLE HEAD HAS TO COME OFF, HAND ME THE BONE SAW. In rare cases the surgery is murdersurgery where you just start indiscriminately killing darlings left and right with an ice pick and leave a gore-slick tile floor in your wake.

But it’s a thing you do because you have to do it. Real writers edit. Real writers rewrite. And it gets easy once you commit — you move piece here, you nudge a piece there, and then it feels more comfortable. But until that point arrives, until you are actually willing to move through the edits, I find that I go through five stages.

And so, I give you, the Kubler-Ross Model of Grief Associated With Editing And Rewriting.

Denial

Edits? What edits?

*ignores email*

*pushes any and all print-outs under the refrigerator*

The book is fine. It’s fine. I never got edits. It’s perfect. Bulletproof even.

*hums a tune loudly, too loudly*

*stares*

*twitches*

Anger

THESE EDITS ARE BULLSHIT.

I CALL SHENANIGANS. THEY’RE JUST WRONG IS WHAT THEY ARE. YOU CAN’T JUST… YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE STUFF. THESE ARE MY CHOICES. THESE ARE MY CONTROLS! Y-YOU DON’T KNOW. YOU’RE DUMB, EDITOR PERSON. SUPER-DUPER-DUMB. LIKE A… A ‘HOOFED ANIMAL KICKED YOU IN THE HEAD’ DUMB. YOU CAN’T JUST EDIT ME. I’LL EDIT YOUR FACE. I’LL CRITIQUE YOUR DUMB DUMB FACE WITH YOUR BUTTHOLE EYES AND YOUR NASTY DOODOO MOUTH. I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS. I LOVE MY WORDS. EVERYTHING IS FINE. YOU’RE NOT FINE. THIS BOOK IS AMAZING. THE REASON I’M THE AUTHOR AND YOU’RE THE EDITOR IS BECAUSE YOU’RE WEAK. THOSE WHO CAN’T WRITE, EDIT, AM I RIGHT? YOU’RE PROBABLY A MONSTER. A HUMAN MONSTER WHO LIKES TO PULL THE WINGS OFF PIGEONS WITH PLIERS AND OHHHH SURE I’M JUST YOUR LATEST PIGEON. I HATE YOU SO BAD. ALSO YOUR SHOES ARE TOTES UGLY.

FUCK IT, FUCK THIS SHIT, FUCK ALL OF EVERYTHING FOREVER.

YOU’RE NOT MY DAD.

*kicks over lamp*

*hugs manuscript tight, lip quivering*

Bargaining

Okay, ha ha ha, sorry about that thing about calling you a monster. I am. That was uncalled for. It was uncouth. I get that now. And the lamp, too. That was a nice lamp. And your shoes are lovely!

So — *clears throat* — let’s talk about these edits. Like, did you really mean them all? Sure, sure, no, no, I know you did, or you think you did. But let’s drill down. Nitty-gritty time. Get our hands dirty. I’m willing to concede, ha ha ha, that the book isn’t perfect. I know that. Of course it’s not! But maaaaaybe it’s not all that bad, right? Like, okay, perhaps we don’t need to get rid of that character entirely. Oh, sure, sure, he can get pulled from chapter three and still remain in the rest of the book, right? And maybe some of these metaphors are a bit loosey-goosey but I think with minimal tweaking — what’s that? No, yeah, sure, I know the ending doesn’t work, but what you’re suggesting is a bit drastic. I don’t want to rewrite the whole ending. Maybe fixing one paragraph will do it. Just one little paragraph. You know how it’s like, “Oh, that shirt doesn’t look good on you,” but then all you have to do is unbutton the top button or like, pop the collar and it’s like, bam. New shirt. New look. Hot look. You go from looking dumpy and sad to just… just snazzy with one little change.

I think we can do that here. Yeah, no, I’ll do your edits, totally. Totally. Just to a lesser degree than you expected. I mean, they say “kill your darlings,” but that sounds so dramatic. Nobody wants to kill anything. We don’t want to murder parts of the book. The book is precious. It’s nice. It didn’t hurt anyone. Let’s not kill our darlings so much as massage them gently into shape.

That’ll fix it. That’ll fix everything.

Probably.

Right?

*chin up*

*blink blink*

Right?!

Depression

everything is a lightless black void

i am terrible at this

all the edits are true

the edits were probably being nice and you were just pulling your punches and the book is terrible and i am terrible and all hope is a screaming dolphin caught in a tuna net

i am a sham. i am an imposter. i am a dung beetle juggling a shit ball uphill.

jesus god what am i doing with my life

i think maybe i’m just going to leave these edits here for a while and i’m gonna walk away from this heinous bus crash of a book i wrote but first i’m gonna quietly place it in this lead-lined trunk and then bury the trunk in the backyard and then build a prison for wayward youths on top of it

i am gonna go now and be a janitor or an accountant or at the very least i am going to sit on the toilet and contemplate my choices all of which have clearly been very poor okay thank you bye

*eats a cookie*

*fails to chew, crumbs tumble from lips onto shirt*

Acceptance

*wakes up after three-day slumber*

*blankets in a tangle, sun through the curtains*

I can do this.

So now I’m going to go do it.

*does it*

yay

I got an email.

The email contained the following paragraph:

My Dilemma, Dr. Wendig, is that I have a book I want to write, something that is kind of… ‘out there’ and totally different to anything else I’ve written or published so far… and the fact of the matter is that I’m SCARED (ugh) to write the damn thing. To really go for it. I mean, we’re talking about just being willing to let it all hang out and write something off the wall and ‘dark’ and ‘edgy’ and all that good stuff. It’s just downright… weird. And I don’t usually write stuff that’s all that weird, but this story is DEFINITELY fucked up. You know? And you’re a writer who… if I had to find something that unites all your work so far, it’s just… FEARLESS. You’re never afraid to go there. Wherever ‘there’ happens to be. I mean, I’m sure you have moments of pant-soiling terror while actually doing the writing – but you still do it. You still write whatever particular twisted weirdness you happen to be vomiting onto the page at the time. 🙂

It’s a great question.

I have thoughts about this.

I have strong thoughts about this.

As I have noted before, I wrote several books before I actually wrote the one that would become my debut novel (Blackbirds), and those several books were a mixture of hot barf, garbage noodles, and books that were sorta-maybe-not-terrible but that weren’t really me. They were all books where I was trying to figure out just who I was as a writer — I was chasing the market, I was chasing the success of other authors, I was chasing my own bewildered ass. I knew I very badly wanted to succeed, and in trying to succeed I forgot why I wanted to write books in the first place, which is because books are awesome. Books changed me. The characters and metaphors and ideas in those books grafted themselves into my DNA. Their effect on me was irrelevant to their success in the marketplace. The effect that mattered was that the books that I read throughout my life and that I connected with were a success to me.

When it came time to write Blackbirds, I was besieged by a case of the FUCKITS. There existed a part of me that felt like it was possible this would be the last book I’d ever write. Because, yeah: fuck it. I didn’t know if I would have the courage to try and write another suck-fest literary tire fire, so I figured if this could be my last, I would go out with a bang. I was just like fuck success, fuck selling this book, fuck being someone else, fuck writing rules, fuck it, fuck it all. I was dealing with some heavy (but standard) shit in my life — the recognition of the mortality of those around me and by proxy the recognition of my own mortality — and as a result, I had this book inside me. It was a cantankerous, mean little fucker. It was a bitter, acerbic, snarky book. It brooked no shit. It gave no shit. The protagonist, Miriam Black, was haunted by death. She knew how other people were going to die and felt powerless to stop it. And that created in her this special kind of venom, this peculiar kind of wayward rage that I found somehow necessary. And so I wrote the book. It took me years to figure out how to even write this book, but I did it, and in writing it I didn’t care about how everyone else thought books were supposed to be written — I only cared about how I wanted to write this book. I clumsily, defiantly broke rules. I inelegantly put to paper this human tornado protagonist who whirled about the narrative, messing up everybody’s plots. She didn’t care about you. I didn’t care about you. I cared only about the book.

The book landed. Got sold. Got pubbed.

Like, the book I wrote is damn near the book that is (once again!) on shelves.

And that book has sold somewhere north of 50,000 copies by this point. Which, by the way, and I say this with no small pride, is pretty great. A book that sells that many copies is not necessarily common — especially a book that I considered marginal, edgy, a bit gonzo, a bit black-hearted. (Though the blackness of her broken heart is contrasted with the few veins of gold that keep that particular organ together in a kind of magical kintsukuroi.) It’s a book with two sequels and three more coming.

I learned a vital lesson in that, which is to always write the book I want to write.

Because fuck you, that’s why. (Er, not you personally. I like you! I mean the general you. The you that tells me I shouldn’t do that.) I write my first drafts with me in mind. I write the first draft like nobody is watching. Though of course I edit the second draft like everybody is watching. First draft is for me. Second draft is for you.

I have no fear when I write.

Because I’m looking to please me, first and foremost.

That sounds callous. It seems selfish. But it’s really the only way to write that book. You can’t write to please everyone else — in part because EVERYONE ELSE comprises this monster blob of competing desires, and also in part because what EVERYONE ELSE wants is unknowable and unpredictable. But what I want? I know what I want. And what I want is to write the book that lives inside my arteries and capillaries, the book that flows through me sure as blood. All I gotta do is chew open my fingertips and type the tale onto the page and it’s mine. I own it. That red is my red, those streaks are my streaks. All the fingerprints belong to me.

All your fingerprints belong to you, too.

You know the book you want to write, even if you don’t think you do. Shut all the worries and anxieties and uncertainties out of your mind and really, you know. You know the book that sings to you when you’re not expecting it. You know the idea that haunts you, that scratches at your brain-stem like a cat dragging its claws across its scratching post. You know what book you’d write if you were the last poor fucker in a world where everyone else was dead.

You know what your own fingerprints look like.

But too often we worry about what everyone else’s look like.

We think we’d rather that our work look like their work. It’s easier that way. Almost like we don’t have to own it, as if we can absolve ourselves of responsibility that way. Like we can just be them instead of being us. Like we can write their books instead of our own.

Nope. Sorry.

Too many books appear and those books chase trends that already exist. They try to be something else — stepping carefully in the footprints of what came before so as not to do differently and mess up the sand. They consume the successful stories and then process them bodily and excrete them back onto the page in some gross literary replication of The Human Centipede. But the books we remember aren’t the ones that carefully tried not to leave footprints, but rather, the books that ran batshit and screaming through the sand and the surf. We remember the books that left their own ragged, looping trails, that cut through the underbrush, that kicked over rocks, that changed the landscape rather than fearing to disturb it.

Trends are bullshit. The books that set the trends are the ones we care about — not the books that carefully hurry after, trying to draft off its speed, trying to cloak itself in the scent of the former as sure as a dog rolling in squirrel diarrhea.

Look at it this way.

Assume you get one shot at writing this book.

That’s probably not true, but hey, it might be. You might write one book and then get hit by a bus. You might get gored by a bull or sucked into a jet engine. We’re all gonna die. It’s just a matter of when the carousel stops turning for us. So, again, assume that it is at least possible the book you write now may be your last.

Make it a good one.

Make it yours.

Don’t be afraid to write the book you really want to write. Fear is what stops great stories from being told. Fear is complicated by the industry — but you can’t worry too much about the industry. Fearing the industry (which by the way is an unknowable Byzantine puzzle box anyway where nobody really knows what works and what doesn’t) is a good way to halt your breath and stay your fingers and stop the story from ever happening. Concentrate on the thing you can do, which is write the best book you can, and a book that you draw from your heart and your genital configuration as much as from your mind. Everyone wants you to stay inside this neat little fence. But you know who stays inside fences? WAKE UP, SHEEPLE. You know who jumps fences? AWESOME MOTHERFUCKERS WHO GO HAVE CUCKOOBANANA ADVENTURES. I mean, stories are rarely about people who play it safe. And so why should authors be encouraged to run counter to what makes our characters so interesting?

Leap the fence. Seize that chaos. Whet your own edge. Go weird. Go buckwild.

You do you.

I want to read the book you want to write.

I don’t want to read the book somebody else wants you to write.

I mean, what kind of advice would that be? Play it safe. Be a little boring. Write somebody else’s book instead of your own. Quiet your voice and diminish what makes your story special. The one thing — the one thing! — you get to bring to the story that nobody else has is you. So, shunt fear and embrace the terror and goddamn just go with it, you know?

And now, if you will, a revised version of the Rifleman’s Creed, for us writer-types —

The Penmonkey’s Creed

This is my book. There are none like it, because this one is mine.

My book is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My book, without me, is useless. Without my book, I am useless. I must write my tale true. I must shoot straighter than my fear who is trying to kill me. I must kill my fear before my fear kills my story.

My book and I know that what counts is not what others have done, what sales we make, what tweets I have twotted. We know that it is my heart that counts. 

My book is a living document, because it is my life. I will learn it as it is my kin. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its characters and plots and themes. I will put my heartsblood into the book and it will put its heartsblood into me as we become part of each other.

Before the Muse that I have shackled to the radiator in my office, I swear this creed. My book and I are the representatives of who I am. We are the masters of our fear. We are the ink-stained fools who press our fingerprints into the page for all to see. We are story and story-teller, one and the same. We are the gods of this place.

So be it, until victory is mine and I have finished my shit — fuck yeah and amen.

* * *

Miriam Black Is Back (In Print)

Miriam Black knows how you’re going to die. This makes her daily life a living hell, especially when you can’t do anything about it, or stop trying to. She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides. She merely needs to touch you—skin to skin contact—and she knows how and when your final moments will occur. Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. But then she hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, and she sees in thirty days that Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and Miriam will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

“Fast, ferocious, sharp as a switchblade and fucking fantastic.” — Lauren Beukes

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

Well, hello there.

You will note that Star Wars: Aftermath is now a proper trilogy.

You will also note that these books have names, and when things have names, THEY ARE REAL.

*vibrates*

Both books continue the adventures of the characters from Aftermath — Norra Wexley and her son Temmin, his maniac B1 battle droid Mister Bones, ex-Imperial loyalty officer Sinjir Rath Velus, bounty hunter Jas Emari, and all-around bad-ass SpecForce dude Jom Barell. (Oh, and we shouldn’t fail to mention Admiral Sloane and her mysterious boss.)

Book Two is called Life Debt, which means that finally we will explore the life debt that bonds two of the galaxy’s most iconic characters — classic hero and sidekick, Qui-Gon Jinn and Jar-Jar Binks.

Wait, no.

Sorry, let’s try that again.

Book Two is called Life Debt, and those who read Aftermath will recognize that a certain interlude in that book starring Han and Chewie may have some resonance here…

Book Three is Empire’s End, and if I said any more about that, I would have to lop off your arms with a lightsaber and replace them with bitey ferrets. Sorry, “space-ferrets.”

I don’t know dates, but I expect these will land in 2016 and 2017 respectively. (Actually, looking at the links above, Amazon has the second book listed for May, 2016. Not sure how accurate.)

Congrats too to talented super-pal Delilah S. Dawson, who gets to write one of the cool new novellas based on some of the aliens inside The Force Awakens — in particular, she’s writing “The Perfect Weapon,” a tale of Bazine.

Thanks to all the folks who have dug the books and checked them out. Met tons of fans of the books this weekend at NYCC, which was rad as hell. (Also, for those asking where I got my I Survived The Battle Of Jakku shirt, well, just click this link.)

So, last week I did this BIG DAMN POST about blah blah blah NaNoWriMo is coming up so this is NaPloYoNoMo (National Plot Your Novel Month), which means you should at least try some kind of outline. And in this post I detailed for you a wide variety of outlines that go well-beyond the school-era Roman numeral parade.

I also warned you I was going to ask to see your work.

Well, here I am.

Asking to see your work.

*shocks you with a shock-prod*

BZZT.

By asking, I mean, demanding.

BZZT.

So, if you please? Show us your work.

BZZT.

If you tried your hand at an outline, any outline, any kind of plotting at all, it’d be very snazzy and nifty and spiffy (aka snifftzy) if you showed us how it was going.

If you care to share, of course.

And you do care to share.

Because I have a shock-prod.

BZZT.

BZZT.

BZZT.

(Easiest way to share your work is to drop it in a post of your own, and then give us a link here in the comments so we can all visit and ooh and ahh and offer comments.)

With great power comes great dysfunction.

Lupo Danish is the most feared man in organized crime. Tales of his exploits are told in hushed whispers around mobbed-up campfires. But when terror strikes gangland, there is only one man capable of battling with monsters, for he has already become one himself. A furious blend of Beowulf and Amazing Fantasy #15, Lupo Danish Never Has Nightmares is a tale of guilt, retribution, and punching. Lots and lots of punching.

Lupo Danish never botches a job. Lupo Danish never misses his mark. And Lupo Danish never has nightmares.

I’M GLAD I WAITED ON THIS

The going wisdom is that at the end of your life, you don’t regret the things you did, but the things you didn’t do. But in this case, the going wisdom can get gone. I came up with the idea for Lupo Danish Never Has Nightmares, a crime version of Beowulf, in 2003. I got about 100 pages written that summer and realized that the idea was good, very good. It was in fact such a good idea that there was no way a perpetually drunk 26-year-old college student living in a garage was going to be able to execute it in a way he wouldn’t later regret. This is counter-intuitive to any writer worth his or her salt, because once you put something down, you rarely pick it back up. But I mentally carved out an area in my brain to think constantly about Lupo, and I was sure I’d get back to it, if for no other reason than I was unlikely to come up with a better idea. Would it have been even better if I had waited longer? If I’d waited until I was dead to write this, would it have been the greatest novel of all time and space? I dunno, maybe. But I’m still grateful I didn’t let that one asshole back 12 years ago fuck this all up for me.

WRITE WHAT YOU WANT

Having said all that, I very much enjoyed getting to work on this book. Like many slack-asses, I would often put off the work of writing to do more fun things like amateur dentistry and compulsive gambling. But Lupo was easier in this regard because a) of all the projects I’ve taken on, this one spoke to me enough to really want to see it through and b) I could justify reading stacks upon stacks of superhero comics as research. So write the stuff that speaks to you most and you’ll never work a day in your life. Again, you’d think I’d have learned this by now, but turns out I’m a big dimbulb most of the time.

INVEST YOURSELF IN YOUR CREATIVITY

For a novel that is largely concerned with punching, this book has a lot of me invested in it personally. That doesn’t exactly put it in an exclusive club: Artists have been exorcising their demons with their work for years, at least since Smokey Robinson recorded “Tears of a Clown.” But there are things about me in this novel that I didn’t even catch until the second or third pass over the final version, and when I did catch them, I had to sit down for a minute. This certainly seems like a lesson I should have learned by now, but if I’m going to insist on playing the wasp-ish role of stiff upper lip in my day-to-day to the severe detriment of my emotional well-being, I sure as fuck better find a way to get that out in my writing.

THE DROWNING CHAIN IS A THING

I’ve always loved the Coen brothers’ films, and one of the many reasons is they are very entertaining at just a surface level, but then they’re also rife with delicious symbolism and imagery. In no way should this be taken to mean that my book is on par with a Coen brothers’ film; however, as far as high water marks to which to strive, I think I could do worse. In the course of trying to invest Lupo and the other major characters with as much subtext as I could, I learned a lot about, among other things, water safety. This will make it much harder for me to ever drown myself when depressed, which I’m sure is a relief to my mom. Plus, “drowning chain” as a phrase sounds really cool.

MY FRIENDS ARE VERY MUCH GOOD

Again, this is not so much a lesson learned, as a fact reinforced, which I might argue is more vital than learning new things at times. From beginning to end of this book, I have had a large and more importantly loving support system of friends and well-wishers to help not only keep my spirits up, but also write this thing and make it as good as I possibly could. I’m not going to risk insulting anyone by listing anyone here, but you sexies know who you are anyways.

* * *

Jimmy Callaway is a writer and stand-up comedian in San Diego, CA.

Jimmy Callaway: Twitter

Lupo Danish Never Has Nightmares: Amazon

(Disclaimer: NAPLO YONOMO is the protagonist of STAR WARS AFTERMATH TWO: EWOK SNUGGLEBOO. He’s a fancy gentleman Gonk Droid with a debilitating spice addiction!)

Next month is National Novel Writing Month, aka, NaNoWriMo.

This month, I am declaring to be NaPloYoNoMo, or National Plot Your Novel Month. Or, if you prefer the more profane edition, NaPloYoMoFuGoDaNoMo month.

I want you to think about the planning, plotting and scheming of your novel.

I want you to think about outlining that novel.

Now, some of you are resistant to the idea of outlining. I know. I get it. Some of you upon hearing the word “outline” clenched up so hard, your buttholes permanently sealed shut. Now it’s just a smooth patch of flesh like bubble gum stretched across a puckered mouth.

BUT NOW HOLD ON.

Calm down. Unseal thine buttocks.

Outlining fucking sucks. I fucking hate it. Every time I do it I have to grit my teeth and swig whiskey and engage in a movie montage where I ragefully punch frozen beef and run through snow. And it takes me like, a day or two — three, tops — and then it’s done and suddenly I don’t fucking hate it anymore. It’s probably like building a house and starting with the basement. Building the basement has to be super shit-ass boring. It’s a basement. It’s just a cinderblock prison. It’s a horizontal dirt cave. The house itself above it — oh, that’s fancy. You get to think about where doorways are and which room will be the living room and the dining room and the SEX TARP room. You get to place windows and floors. But the basement: Ugh, fuck the basement. And yet, you need the basement. You need the foundation.

I need outlines. I am a pantser by heart, a plotter by necessity. I engage in the misery of extricating an outline from the hot pile of skull-meat I call a brain, and then I slap it onto the page and suddenly — boom-bam, there’s the book. Not in its entirety, but in its sheer potential. It makes a book feel possible. It makes a story feel a bit more manageable.

Plus, sometimes a publisher will ask for an outline. Work-for-hire will demand it. And often, pitching an unwritten novel (which becomes hypothetically doable once you’ve sold your first novel) may require an outline, too. So, it becomes a skill worth learning. I’m asking you take this month — October! — and try however much it chafes your particular genital configuration to outline your upcoming book. (Or, if you’ve already written a book, practice by outlining the one you already wrote. You’d be amazed at how clarifying this can be.)

Time, then, to talk about outlining.

But first, we need a few items of shared understanding regarding outlining. These are not so much golden rules as they are things I want you to grok regarding the plotting of one’s novel.

They are:

1. Outlining is a non-essential process. By which I mean, some writers like it, some don’t. Everybody has their own way forward. I’m encouraging learning the skill, not adopting it permanently. Writing and storytelling offer few absolutes.

2. Outlining will not “destroy the magic” or any of that wifty supernatural pegasus shit. I believe very much that writing and storytelling feels like magic while at the same time being a wholly and gloriously mundane activity. Further, if something like outlining is capable of stealing the lightning from your story, then what you had wasn’t so much “lightning” but a “static electric spark” like when you rub your footy pajamas on the carpet. Call me back when you have contained actual lightning — at which point you will learn that no amount of outlining is capable of diminishing its ELECTRIC FURY.

2.2. If outlining destroys your writing magic, editing/rewriting is going to fucking obliterate it.

3. One of the values of outlining is that it gives you a map forward — a fraying rope to reach for and cling to in the long darkness of the writing process. Another value is that it lets you muddle through the mistakes of your story early on — it’s a lot easier to fix a 2-3 page outline than it is to fix a 300 page novel, I promise.

4. When plotting any novel, remember: let the characters lead. You have heard me (er, read me) say this 100 times, so here’s #101: PLOT IS SOYLENT GREEN. IT IS MADE OF PEOPLE.

5. No battlefield strategy survives contact with the enemy, and no outlines survive contact with the story. Every journey across the country will require detours and unexpected stopovers — you should expect this, too, when you jump from the outline to the actual novel at hand.

So, with that being said, let’s talk about the various styles of outlining. Each have different benefits and disadvantages. Every book I’ve written has demanded a different kind of outline. Sometimes they’re ten pages long, sometimes they’re hastily scrawled on the drywall in my own body’s leavings. Note that these outlining modes are not necessarily exclusive to each other — they can be used together, if need be. Also, various pieces of software can be used across these outlining methods — Word, Scrivener, Excel (yes, you can do some of these in spreadsheets), Index Card apps for your phone, Mind Mapping apps, etc.

If you want some general tips and tricks first:

• Practice these by outlining movies and books you’ve already seen and read.

• You can Google up some examples (I’ve provided some, but I am confident that you know how to use the MAGIC GOOGLEMACHINE to make information appear.)

• These don’t necessarily need to be for public consumption. Write them as cuckoo bananapants as you want. Mine are not fit for public eyes and probably read like the Unabomber’s manifesto. That said, maybe I’ll ask you to share…

• If one style doesn’t work, flip to another. You can remix them together if you prefer.

• You’re not married to anything. It’s not like the Outline Police are watching from the trees, sniper rifles ready to peel your scalp in case you deviate from the well-lit path of the outline. The outline is you making shit up. Don’t stress. This is Play-Doh and Crayola time, not CARVING TRUTH INTO DIVINE TABLETS time.

The Book Jacket

Method: Emulate the text you’d find on a book jacket. Meaning, give 3-4 paragraphs detailing who the story is about and what the problem is. Not an outline, really, but a shallow synopsis.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ You can use it later on as your query letter.

+ The story feels unburdened by heavy plotting.

+ You have this to return to as a throughline to keep the story on target.

+ Small time investment.

– Actually, fuck that, it can be a huge time investment. I find writing three paragraphs of summary as time consuming as writing ten pages of outline. Because rendering your 500 lb. pig into a 5 lb. bucket is hard and frustrating and will make you want to print out your word garbage just so you can crumple it up into an origami boulder, cram it into your mouth, choke on it, and die.

– Too shallow to be highly functional.

The Proper Synopsis

Method: A synopsis will run about 2-3 pages, and detail the overall narrative thrust of the book. (Please be advised: “The Narrative Thrust” is the name of my patented sex move. It is illegal in six states. It is popular in Poland.) A synopsis is less about the sequence of events and more about the scope of the book. Detail the main characters, their arcs, the POV, the conflicts, the time and setting, maybe touch a little on theme. Broad strokes are necessary. You’re gonna have to skimp on plot details, but the synopsis isn’t entirely about plot. Give a sense of the beginning, middle and ending.  Bring all your writing talents to bear in case you want to one day use this with an agent or editor. Write it in 3rd person, and yes, most synopses are written in present tense. Rankle all you want about that. Go on, squirm. I’ll wait.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Can be used with agents or editors.

+ Broad, encompassing strokes are valuable to know even if you don’t want the nitty-gritty of the plot laid out in front of you — writing one of these before you write the book can really help keep you on track.

– The synopsis is almost always a giant fucking lie, meaning, you write it knowing full well you’re plotting a journey to another country half-drunk and blindfolded.

– Because it lacks a proper sequence of events, fails to function as a testing ground for whether or not the fiddly bits of the book actually work or suck moist open ass.

The Beat Sheet

Method: You literally outline every plot point. You list them with minimal detail. BOB EATS CAKE. MARY BETRAYS HIM. DON PUNCHES A MONKEY. They can cover major plot points only, or drill down and encompass every little beat of action that occurs. You can find a fairly minimal one here at John August’s site. Or, here’s Another good example at John’s site, this time of Charlie’s Angels (film). And here’s a list of Save the Cat! style beat sheets, too.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Lets you drill down into plot points and see where shit works and where shit fails.

+ Actually helps highlight potentially boring parts — when your beatsheet suddenly becomes BOB SITS and MARY CALLS FOR PIZZA, and it’s a whole lot of that, you can gain a sense that there’s too long a lull where not much is happening — you need to get back to the part where DON IS PUNCHING MONKEYS. Because monkey-punching is exciting. That is gospel truth. Take that to the bank and smoke it. /mixedmetaphor

+ Forces you to think about plot mechanics.

– Doesn’t really force you to think as much about character mechanics.

– Stripping down a story to these beats can be useful as hell, but also a little rote. Reducing the narrative to THIS HAPPENS WHICH RESULTS IN THIS BUT THEN THIS HAPPENS again has value — but if you’re one of those people who worries about the glittery unicorn magic of writing, this will definitely dull some of that sparkle.

– Works very well with film, TV and comics. With novels, the beat sheet tends to be longer.

– Further, novels tend to operate more strongly on an internal dimension — and beat sheets really aren’t meant to map the mental, emotional or intellectual dimension as well.

The One With The Roman Numerals

Method: This is the one you learned in school. The one with the Roman numerals (I, II, III) and then beneath that, in indented order: regular old numbers (1, 2, 3) cap letters (A, B, C), lowercase letters (a, b, c). This isn’t a hard-and-fast design — you decide exactly what fills these spaces. Each Roman numeral might identify a chapter and then you drill down into the events of that chapter. You might outline acts, sequences and scenes or some other aspect of story structure. You might just outline a series of emoji and dick doodles, I dunno. You do you.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Simple, easy-to-understand format.

+ Clean, versatile format that lets you do basically whatever you want.

– Ugly as shit, let’s be honest. Roman numerals are utilitarian. Can’t we use something cooler? Occult symbols? Nordic runes? The aforementioned emoji and dick doodles?

– Will remind you of high school which for me is like, a surefire way to get me to hate doing anything. Suddenly I’m getting cardboard cafeteria pizza and hours-of-homework flashbacks.

Scenes And Sequences

Method: Scenes and sequences are narrative measurements. Yes, you can measure narrative. It isn’t as clean as a math problem or using a a measuring tape to determine the length of something (elephant trunk, desk, dresser, snake, height, wang-length, your parents’ disappointment). A scene generally is set in a single location in an uninterrupted span of time — it is contained. A sequence is a gathering of scenes that fit together. c3p0 running into R2D2 on Jabba’s sailbarge is a scene. Luke walking the plank on the skiff above the Sandy Fanged Butthole just before R2D2 ejaculates a lightsaber into the air is a scene. Hutt-Slayer Leia is a scene. All those scenes add up to the LUKE MAKES GOOD ON HIS PROMISE TO STRAIGHT-UP MURDER JABBA THE HUTT sequence. A film tends to have eight sequences, roughly 40-60 scenes, and those add up into three total acts. You’re not writing film and the rules for film are pretty godsdamn flimsy anyway. The goal here is to write out every sequence and then build into that what scenes comprise each.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Gives you a feeling of how all the pieces large and small fit together.

+ A bit more nuanced than a beat sheet.

+ Plays well with the One With The Roman Numerals (above).

– Fits well with film, TV, comic book — can get a little leggy or sprawly with big novels.

Tent Poles

Method: Easy. Your novel requires a certain number of MAJOR PLOT THINGIES to be the story you envision. It’s like, VAMPIRE DAVE HAS TO USURP THE WEREWOLF PRINCE OF UTICA, and then THE WEREWOLF PRINCE HAS TO KILL VAMPIRE DAVE’S MOM and then ROBOT INVASION and man, I dunno, it’s your fucking book. Point is, the book is like a tent and it only remains aloft and functional when a certain series of tentpole plot points hold it up. Right? Right. So, you just need to write down the four or five big holy shit things that are utterly absoflogginglutely required for this thing to function. That’s it.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Gets you thinking in big, broad strokes — is the whole thing sensible? Here is your test.

+ Leaves you a lot of room between the tentpoles to roam, play, babble, wander.

+ A good outline for people who don’t want to outline much.

– Doesn’t deal much with character or the more finicky plot bits.

– Leaves a lot of uncharted territory where heinous fuckery can take root.

Chaos Reigns

Method: JUST GO BUCKWILD ON THAT SHIT. Like, free-write your way through the outline. No form. No meaning. Just you cranked up on the batshit adrenalin formed when you’ve got your teeth around a good tale, running like a hog on fire through the jungle of your story.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Fun, no rules, chaos is bright and alive and weird.

+ An amazing way to really cook your brain in the fires of this particular story.

– Not so useful as a reference document. It will end up reading like the fecal handprint wall of a conspiracy theorist — it’s all red yarn connectors and nutball phrases and also poop.

Zero Draft

Method: Kinda like CHAOS REIGNS v2.0. This is you writing the whole novel. Except not. You are going to write the book with little sense of what’s happening or any outline — in fact, your shit-ass half-ass draft will become your outline. It’s like a proving ground. It’ll either be too long or too short, and it’ll probably be too terrible to be functional.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ The purest way to just charge forward and embrace the power of sucking.

+ Will definitely show you the parts of the book that are fucked up.

+ If you invest your emotion properly — meaning, low — you don’t feel so bad about writing a bunch of hot sticky medical waste and then jettisoning it out the airlock to start anew.

– Not really an outline, and more a TRIAL BY FIRE TORNADO.

– Takes a long time and is messy as hell.

Characters In Control

Method: This is a character-focused outline. It says, “fuck the plot, let’s talk about these wandering hobos that fill my novel.” List out each character. Then write about them. Chart their wants, their fears, their needs. Chart their problems and their way to overcome their problems. Chart their arcs — who are they when the tale begins and what do they become in the crucible of the narrative? This is less about what happens next and more about creating a group of characters and setting them on their path together (or in opposition to one another) and watching the story unfold. (For your reading: the Zero Fuckery Guide to Creating Kick-Ass Characters, and my guide to creating great supporting characters.)

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Allows characters to take the driver’s seat; characters are why we read stories.

+ I find this is a little more fun and a little less proscriptive.

+ Less attention on sheer plotty event sequencing.

– Less attention on sheer plotty event sequencing. If what you need is to strengthen your plot, then this may not be the best way forward?

The Screenplay

Method: Write your novel as a screenplay. No, really, that’s it. A screenplay is, at its core, PEOPLE SAY SHIT and PEOPLE DO SHIT. It is dialogue and action with the sparest, barest description. A screenplay is an outline. It doesn’t seem like it, but consider: a screenplay is not the final product. A novel is, but a screenplay goes through various hands and phases before it actually ends up on screen. The script is just a series of suggestions as to what appear in front of audiences.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ An easy-breezy way to write a “zero draft” of your novel.

+ You’ll be amazed at how fast it is to write a book this way.

+ Flexes some different storytelling and format muscles.

– Um, it’s a screenplay? Which means you have to know how to write a screenplay. Format, etc.

– Screenplays are, A-DOYYY, not novels. So, you’re practicing with one format when ideally you should be learning to practice another. It’s like learning roller skating by training with a skateboard or with ice skates. It’s similar, and useful, but may not be a good fit for everyone.

As You Go

Method: Outline as you go. Finish a chapter and outline the next two or three.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Keeps your story loose and flexible, like the elastic in a comfortable pair of beloved underwear.

+ Never feels like you’re forcing yourself down one path (though again it is vital to remember that outlines are not sacred gnostic documents but just a list of made-up suggestions).

– It’s basically an act of drawing the map after you’ve started driving the car. It’s hard to see the deadman curves and blown-up bridges if you don’t plot the map ahead of time.

The Story Bible

Method: A giant-ass worldbuilding bible. No specific format, but assume it should read like the encyclopedia for a world that doesn’t necessarily exist. Focuses not at all on the plot of the single book and more about the overall world — including history, food costumes, design notes, religions, myths, traditions, holy dildos, mating parades, monkey-punching rituals, etc.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ It’s like, a big geeky bag of worldbuilding fun.

+ Lets you worry less about plot and more about creating a rich, fascinating setting that will spur the plot forward and give the characters an awesome setting in which to ROMP and GIBBER.

– Not actually plot-based, so — kinda separate from an outline. Also means you’re likely to build in tons of things that have nothing to do with the plot or the characters. A lot of excess.

– A very good way to waste time productively. Most things like this have a horizon line of functionality, and it’s very easy to traipse past that horizon line and continue writing your worldbuilding story bible for 16 years while never committing word one to the actual book you’re writing. It feels productive. But after a point, it damn sure isn’t.

Draw Its Shape

Method: Story has shape. It has architecture. The narrative skeleton is pressed into the flesh of the story. So, design that. You might design lots of shapes — the classic Freytag’s Pyramid, or a more nuanced and jagged version of that. (Might I recommend this terribleminds post? Story Shapes: Four Ways To Think About Narrative Architecture.) You might also graph pacing — it’s valuable to think about slowing down and speeding up the narrative at key points.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ A nice, abstract way to think about your story.

– Aaaaand maybe too abstract? This might be better when paired with one of the other outline forms, just to give you something less theoretical and more comprehensive.

Mind Maps

Method: A mind map is when you drill into your own head in an act of narrative trepanation, and you stuck a bendy straw in there and let the sweet STORY NECTAR dribble onto the page. It’s like maple syrup, kinda, and the idea is — *receives note* — okay, that’s not what a mind map is so clearly I have been doing this very wrong. *plugs up forehead hole with cork* A mind map is a central bubble (YOUR NOVEL) with a lot of other bubbles branching off of it. You can track plot, theme, characters, really anything you want — and you can do so in an explicitly visual way. Here is a good example at Iain Broome’s site: “How I Use A Mind Map To Build Stories.”

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Fun, easy, lots of software and apps to help you do it.

+ Abstract, but not so abstract it becomes a thought exercise — still concretizes ideas.

– Not really helpful in sequencing.

– Can get kind of noisy — may need to break out several smaller mind maps to make it work.

 And That’s That

There you go. A big-ass skull-crusher of a post about outlining. Use it. Abuse it. Ignore it.

And, if you like it, share it.

We’ll talk more about outlines and plotting as the month goes on — in the meantime, remember that I do want you to try at least one of these methods, just for fucks and chuckles. We will in fact be tracking some of this stuff and — if you’re brave — posting them online. (We’ll check back in a couple weeks on that front.)