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mikheelm · 4 months ago

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II. Outlining

So I'm going to be using the website I mentioned in this post. And will be using screenshots in explaining how I plot the overall planning for my fanfic. We will be exploring The Secrets of Story Structure. Now let's begin:

So because I already am familiar with this method of outlining I quickly put in major scenes I want in a simple uncomplicated sentence:

Story structure is important and the summary you made helps you outlining which will help in pacing and planning and brainstorming you story. You can read it here.

Now here is an overall planning and beats of the writing process and how a novel looks and works:

1. The Hook:

The Hook is what pulls your reader in and convinces them to read your story. This does not make your reader stay for the whole ride, your writing must do that but it makes them give your fanfic/story a chance.

A hook is the opening scene that makes the reader asks: What's going to happen next?

Now I can debate that for AO3 specifically the hook is not just in the material but the tags along with the summary. The tagging system already gives your reader what is going to happen in your fic amd if they want to read or not.

This is important why you should never lie in your tags. Or omit something such as a trigger. For example not including the major character death tag just for the surprise of it all. Or the r*pe tag. These are not good tagging etiquette.

My hook in the beginning was Daniel meeting Louis but it changed to Daniel getting his paper from his professor. I'm not saying that it won't change but so far it's what I have for now.

2. Inciting event:

The inciting event is where the character wants something but doesn't really dedicate themselves to it. The conflict is only brushing themselves against the protagonist.

For me the inciting incident is that Daniel acknowledges his crush on Louis and that he is married. Not a crime, right? Surely it will go away. It changes the dynamic but not by much, it's a minor problem for Daniel. He still has to figure out his portfolio and his story. He's got bigger fish to fry.

3. The first plot point:

The first plot point is where the character's world changes. It will never be the same again after this event.

For Daniel this is where Louis has a miscarriage and that his crush is growing to something more. Louis gives him an opportunity to create a story for his portfolio on him as Lestat's Unknown Husband. This is huge even though it's not the type of journalism Daniel wants to do in the future. His life will forever change because of it.

4. First Pinch Point:

The First Pinch Point occurs at the 37% mark, a quarter of the way into the Second Act and halfway between the First Plot Point and the Midpoint. It foreshadows the antagonist by providing a peek at facts the protagonist has barely grasped as yet.

My first pinch point in planning is to have Daniel to get caught in his crush by Lestat and confronted by Lestat. He denies it of course but acknowledges that Lestat can stop the interaction between Louis and him anytime. And the power Lestat has, not only over Louis but Daniel too.

5. Midpoint:

Pushes the protagonist out of their reflexive reactions. It is the moment of truth for the protagonist.

For me I want the midpoint to be Daniel realising his crush on Louis is more than that and the publishing of the article on Louis and his coming out to society. Them being friends but Daniel wanting more.

This changed a bit too. Daniel also kisses Louis and confesses which is what I consider the true midpoint.

6. Second Pinch Point:

The protag is no longer in the reactionary stage. He is active in his choices to the plot. The stakes are clearly stated to the protagonist.

For Daniel this is him not wanting to lose Claudia and Louis and his relationship with them. But finding out or suspicious of Lestat's infidelity.

7. The third plot point:

This is where the protagonist gives in to the Truth and starts to be really active in plot.

For Daniel, what I plan, is that he posts the cheating scandal on Lestat and it blows up.

8. Climax:

This is where the protagonist meets the Antagonist and faces off with him.

This is where Daniel is met with attention as a Journalist. His relationship with Louis breaks apart and he tries to save it. He confesses his feelings here. Has changed. I'm still unsure on how exactly is a proper scene for this

9. Resolution:

Everything is resolved. Unless you are doing a series. Then most things are resolved but some aren't so they can be used as the next inciting event in the next book.

For Daniel this is him graduating (Daniel has already graduated in the climax.) And landing a job at a Journalist company. He parts ways with Louis and their friendship is over. Daniel is still in love but is trying to move on. Maybe a letter to Louis.

Notes:

Of course there are other things I want to add in-between but this is the rough plan to get the story in order.

A lot things might change in the later stages. The plot might even be completely different. But for now this is what I see happening. The one I wrote in the notebook is not even remotely the same as the one here. And that's okay.

Self notes: One of the things I want to be added is a threesome between Daniel, Louis and Lestat. A kiss between DanLou. Along with some Louis POV's sprinkled here and there.

The story is divided between three parts. First Act, Second Act, Third Act. And that's how I will be exploring it in detail in the next post. But at least I know what is to come or how I feel about some important parts.

[Part 3/? : Outlining]

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mikheelm · 4 months ago

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I. Pre-Planning

I call this process the Pre-Planning. It is when you basically lay out your idea and try to process exactly what you have. This will generally take me 3 weeks to a month or two. It has 4 steps.

1. 🅸︎🅳︎🅴︎🅰︎

One day I will be going about my business and then BAM an idea pops up. Or rather the concept of an idea.

Usually it's a scene or just straight up vibes. That's when I take the idea and sit with it. Put it in my mind and think about it for a few days. This is done unconsciously for the most part for most of us. Me included.

How my ideas came is that I imagined a scene between Louis and Daniel meeting over a coffee bar. [I realised this was from what happened in the show and is canon in how they met.]

For a few more days I realised I wanted a human AU. No supernatural. That's all I had at the time.

For the most part sitting with your idea for a few days or weeks helps in getting what exactly you want to tell. You come up with scenes and you have time to see the vibes and overall planning of the fic.

This is three weeks in, a few days after starting documenting. I realised I don't want a completely full human AU. And I want to dabble in Omegaverse.

That's all I have. And it is enough for me. For now. You have to understand that we have to let the idea marinate. Give yourself time to day-dream about it. Mine took weeks before I decided that this was the idea I was going with.

2. 🆂︎🅺︎🅴︎🅻︎🅴︎🆃︎🅾︎🅽︎ 🅿︎🅻︎🅰︎🅽︎🅸︎🅽︎🅶︎

The second thing I did was make it a 'draft' in AO3. This helps to summarise what I want. Especially the use of tags just feels like a neat summary already. Though I know it will change in the future it's a good way to lay a foundation of what I want.

The tagging system shows things like which ship I want to focus on. What type of AU it is and what I want from it. While doing this process I usually take about half an hour.

This will change as I go on of course. Some tags might be added, some will be removed. The M/M tag might be joined with M/F if I want Daniel to explore his sexuality on page. It's not the final and that is why you go and save it as a draft after you are done.

This works as a great way to summarise your fic because the start of every story needs a way to explain your work to others. This would later help write your blurb/summary for your fanfic on AO3.

3. 🆃︎🅷︎🅴︎🅼︎🅴︎ 🅴︎🆇︎🅿︎🅻︎🅾︎🆁︎🅸︎🅽︎🅶︎

Now after all that I take everything that inspired this idea. Songs/pins/scenes/quotes and see what core themes I want to tell in the story. This will also change slightly or grow.

As I edit this I'd like to note I have a whole new pin board for this specific story after the fifth page of this plan. Your themes will somewhat stay the same but they will grow more intricate.

Exploring themes helps writing tone and atmosphere and emotional impact in scenes. Here is the rough inspiration I see as important and I want as my core themes. I've written it on my notebook and then explained them below the picture. [You should do this too. This might take an hour or two depending how much you've thought about it]

★ Helen of troy

The fandom has a trend of calling Louis Helen of Troy. Because of his tendency to attract everyone around him without even trying. Though it's sort of a joke I want to explore it. I am a geek for greek mythology and Helen's story – I've realised – is not really told. It's always about the men around her.

Which is kind of a parallel to Louis whose story never gets told again in his point of view and about the other vampires around him later in the books. And how they work around him or judge him.

Louis having the first day of his own story and then be overlooked later when the men who loved him have a say makes it so tragic because he had what Helen never had but still he is overlooked and given all the blame.

So that's what I want to explore in this fanfic. I do not know how but I plan to do so. I have this video to thank for the idea of making it it's own theme. And this video on how to explore Helen's story into Louis' own story.

★ Pining trope

From Fanlore in Wiki Pining is described to be when one other character is in love with another character in secret and does not tell the object of their affection. [Visit page for a more in-depth explanation]

I want Daniel to be the pine-er in this fic. And I plan for them not to get together in the first part/book of the series. And therefore it will be a slow burn. It's gonna be the main part of the story a lot. The longing of pining etc. This is mainly from how Daniel never forgot about Louis and walked through life carrying him. I think it's so beautiful and sad.

★ Journalist Aesthetic

Honestly because Daniel is a journalist and I find I can incorporate that in my fanfic in a way that can cause a lot of potential drama especially if Lestat is a rockstar already in this fic. Which goes into the angst. Drama = angst most of the time.

★ Hades Town: Hades as a husband

This was mainly a passing idea and inspiration.

Hades in Hades Town was always such an interesting character to me especially comparing to other remakes and re-tellings of any story about Hades and Persephone. In these other retellings Hades is mostly seen as loving and not the villain. Hades always treats Persephone as a Queen. In Hades town it felt like domestic horror and Hades is seen as a workaholic. Like an unhappy marriage that Persephone cannot escape. At least not for too long. Her love for him is a tragedy.

I wanted to apply that to Louis and Lestat's dynamic here. Louis as Persephone and Lestat as Hades. But also in the future as I will be following canon closely, I want to incorporate Armand as Hades too in their dynamic but maybe a different version of him.

Break down & understanding

Now after taking all my main inspirations I break them down to themes.

The obvious themes without looking too much into it is: Angst, Romance, Love, Pining, Family.

The other that comes after some thoughts I want to explore is: Miscarriage and the journey of it.

The pain and hurt coming from that is a great plot point and an opportunity to enhance the stakes and is an opportunity to create an emotional connection between characters.

My reasoning for including it is because of personal reasons.

[My mother not being able to carry children and struggles. The need for her to have a big family but only being able to have two children. And her womb being a place of danger for her children. Both times she has me and my sister we were premature and in risk of death. Me more than my little sister. Fanfics can be a way to explore trauma and though my mom's miscarriage are my mom's trauma it still hit me really deep and makes me prepare for my own future if I have kids. And that I might face the same struggles in the future. Also ties with motherhood.]

Abuse: A theme in the series. And more importantly a theme I have experienced not from my main family (at least not physically) but from living with my extended family.

Infidelity is another theme I want to explore. Not only because of the canon content given to us but also I want to use it to heal and explore Louis as a character and his own upbringing in how he views it.

Other themes will come in and motifs. But it's important to tag most themes. Not only because it is a good summary and it's AO3 etiquette but some themes are triggers for other people. Always tag appropriately.

4. 🆃︎🅸︎🆃︎🅻︎🅴︎

Now this feels optional for some people but my titles often help in how I want my story to go. Usually, like in the show, titles link to the story and become relevant to the story at some point.

This title was inspired by the quote:

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

And then mix it with the question: What does it mean to be the beholder of beauty.

Then I added 'thesis' because a thesis is a study. And the core of the story is that Daniel studies Louis and focuses on him so solely that he becomes a project then he becomes his muse then becomes his beloved.

And that's how I understand the story better. And make sure to never lose focus of the goal of the story.

1. 🆄︎🅽︎🅸︎🆅︎🅴︎🆁︎🆂︎🅴︎ 🆃︎🆈︎🅿︎🅴︎

The next question to ask: What type of AU is it?

I play close to canon in this story. Though I do not have the name yet for what type of AU I'm writing it is sort of a play of Human AU/Omegaverse AU with a mix of Modern AU. Along with using Grey Canon.

For simplicity sake I tag it AU as an umbrella term.

I will be following the shipping arc of the story. Meaning that Louis will be with Lestat then Armand then be single before he gets with Daniel.

Or at least that is what I plan. It might change. Until then I'm playing closely to home.

1. 🅿︎🆁︎🅴︎🅼︎🅸︎🆂︎🅴︎

In the end I take all of this and I put it through a one-liner synopsis that is a summary of my book. This is the work/book's premise.

There are many formats out there. But a few I use just to have a better format when writing my final summary of my work are:

1) In a World where Inciting Incident and Stakes, Character takes Action against Problem to get Goal.

2) When Inciting Incident, Character joins World to take Action despite Problem in order to Goal before Stakes.

3) Character of Problem World takes Action to achieve Goal and Stakes to prevent Inciting Incident.

Now don't concentrate too much on the fancy words such as inciting incident. It's basically what changes for the story begin. What makes the characters life go from 'my normal life' to 'this whole new world'.

Now I take my planning and put through these sweet tings:

1) In a omegaverse-centric world Daniel meets Louis and must keep his crush a secret, Daniel goes to interview him to keep a professional distance so that he doesn't fall deeper for him and to finally score the story that will get him a quality portfolio as a Journalist.

2) When Daniel meets Louis he is immediately drawn to him, Daniel joins his world of stars and money by interviewinh him despite falling for Louis in order to score a story that will get him the best start to his Journalistic portfolio before anyone finds out about his crush on Louis.

3) Daniel, a college student in journalism, is falling for Louis who belongs to the rockstar and rich world goes onto interview Louis so that he can have the best portfolio and stop anyone from finding out his massive crush on Louis so that he doesn't blow his chance at a good story and good friendship.

As you can see the stakes and the inciting incident differ from each structure. Which also dictates the tone of the story. This is why I put it through different synopsis. I'm just Happy that the story stays somewhat the same.

An extra impulsive decision during my creativity is I created a blurb.for the fanfic now that I can see the feeling and vibe in a new perspective:

The summary/synopsis is to help you, the writer, write the story. Having that as a blurb would be fine but will spoil the story at the end. The impulsive blur will help write the story but will change most likely.

No reader will see my synopsis.

[Part 2/? : Pre-Planning]

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