#outlining method

[it-crowd-unexpected-reboot]

Update #2: A New Outlining Method, Dropdown Plotter

I've been having a hard time conceptualizing how to plan out a novel lately. It used to come so easy to me. Now that I'm a real adult, it feels like there isn't enough space in my brain anymore for me to have my story all in my head without writing my ideas down somewhere.

So, good outlining methods, which can be hard to come by, are crucial for my writing process.

But, a lot of traditional methods don't work for me.

In my opinion, it's extremely important to have an outlining method that doesn't overwhelm you, and which feels creatively freeing. And when do I need to be more creatively free, than when writing an IT Crowd fanfiction?

So I've come up with a new outlining method that I'd love to share with you all! I call it Dropdown Plotter.

Dropdown Plotter uses the dropdown menu feature, which can be found in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, to help you better visualize (and, most importantly, easily reorganize) the major aspects of each chapter of your story.

Basically, it's a spreadsheet that includes, at minimum, 8 columns.

Chapter Title

Plotlines

Included Character(s)

Perspective Character(s)

Location(s)

Chapter Story Description

Writing Stage

Due Date

Why keep track of these things? Balance. Basically, making sure your characters, plotlines, POVs, and important locations all get adequate page time.

It's a lot easier to conceptualize these things when you have it on a color-coded spreadsheet, zoomed out really far, and can see in a big picture way. For example, you might see that the red color indicating "Legolas" is in a scene, drops off after Chapter 17. You might see that the green-coded plot about his missing shoe is only important for 5 chapters in the middle of the story, or that we're spending almost the entire story in the bathroom and never in the evil lair.

So, how do you use the Dropdown Plotter?

First, you go into the dropdown menu, and you can see all the plots you've selected. There's a handy "search feature" for those writing the next Game of Thrones. You want to click the little pencil icon in the bottom right, which is the "edit" button.

On the right-hand side of your screen, a column will pop up called "Data Validation Rules." From here, you can edit the names and colors of each item in the dropdown menu, and add or delete things as you'd like.

Make sure to click "allow multiple selections" on the bottom of the data validation rules pop-up. This will allow you to select multiple characters, multiple locations, and multiple plots when you're in the dropdown menus.

Don't forget to click "Done" at the bottom!

On top of the dropdown menus, the nice thing about working in a spreadsheet is that you can always drag and drop the rows and columns. This makes it extremely easy to change the order of scenes around, in a way that feels very impermanent and easy.

Here is what my Dropdown Plotter looked like for the first three chapters of The Grant: An IT Crowd Fanfiction.

Looks pretty, right? And pretty outlines build confidence! Not only that, but what I like most about this outlining method is that it encourages me to be less precious with my ideas.

It's way less intimidating to overhaul major aspects of your story, such as the dominant POV, the main plot, etc., when all you have to do is click a little button in the dropdown menu to change everything. When I'm editing a little blurb in a spreadsheet versus an entire step outline, it reminds me that no writing problem is insurmountable, and nothing is ever really set in stone.

Again, it builds confidence.

Unfortunately, I've only built a Dropdown Plotter in Google Sheets, but I've provided a blank version to share with you all. The nice thing about spreadsheets is that you can add and delete things as you see fit. For example, some people might want to add...

More columns indicating multiple scenes within the same chapter!

A "Story Beat" column, to mark the specific plot beats each chapter follows (as in the Hero's Journey or the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet).

An "Important Info" column, to mark any worldbuilding or character details discussed or introduced in a certain chapter.

Literally anything your little heart desires!

Happy outlining and I hope you enjoy the Dropdown Plotter!

[kaviithing]

[keeps-ache]

that crushed sugar feel

[padfootastic]

hohoho i am writing a remus & sirius confrontation that is ending up a little too mean and it’s verging on the edge of not fitting into FoD but by god, is it satisfying 😈😈😈

“Oh, stop pretending, Remus.” There’s a part of Sirius, not insignificant, that tells him to shut the fuck up. To bite back the words as he’d always done. They don’t expect it of him but he is perfectly capable of maintaining a civil tongue when needed. He just doesn’t want to, today. “You’ve always resented us, haven’t you?”

“Padfoot, do you even hear yourself—?” Remus’ amber eyes are bright, almost feverish, and Sirius knew that all he had to do was push.

So he did.

- brought to u by ‘i’ve been thinking about remus and i also recently read a fic that blindsided me w commentary on james’ and sirius’ social positions intimidating remus into compliance as an excuse for his cowardice and general temperament and got incredibly annoyed at how he is, yet again, victimised so i shall now endeavour to turn that idea around on its head using the ‘ol ‘u cannot help someone who does not want to be helped’ adage so help me god’

[bleaksqueak]

Did you know that Procreate doesn't have a lot of the standard filter/effects tools that Photoshop and Clip Studio have? For the most part I'm A-OK fine living without those, but the one that boggles my mind is that Procreate doesn't have a stroke feature. I bring this up because I use stroke a lot for subtle things, and I use it a lot for graphic things (like comic binding boxes, lettering, etc.)... and, for the current illustration, I used it for almost the entire background. So do you want to know the stupid way to simulate the stroke effect in Procreate? SURE YOU DO. You have to duplicate the item, or lines, you want to have a stroke effect on... You then move it below your object/lines, gausian blur the duplicate beneath to 2 - 3%, then keep duplicating that blurred copy and merging it with itself until the extra selection of pixels created by the blur are, once more, solid. It's a lot of duplicating and merging. PROCREATE, PLEASE, THIS IS YOUR ONLY TRUE FLAW. Please add a stroke tool my family is starving.

[punkrorschach]

the article was published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal by two academics who have dedicated years of their life to teaching education and literature, the third author is a former professor and educator of many years. sometimes people do in fact know more about certain things than you do, especially if it's their literal job. your attitude and rage towards this study is very anti-intellectual, I would consider thinking about why you immediately think to call the authors 'elitist' given how much that rhetoric is used against universities and higher education, particularly by those on the right

i have a degree in psychology and am currently getting my masters in sociology. literally today i began writing a report on the various ethical concerns one must undertake in order to develop a study properly. the study they conducted sucked ass. wholly and completely. sometimes smart people with degrees and years in the field make ass studies. look up the stanford prison experiment for more fun facts about flawed testing.

x

[thefandomenchantress]

I fear autocorrect has gotten to know me a little too well.

[johnslittlespoon]

ok 1. these are my tough and sweet drafting docs, i have never been this insane about outlines in my life this is what getting on adhd meds does to a man. someone sedate me (i have also Never drafted out a fic until i started writing for this fandom jfc) (also sry i forgot to mute spotify b4 making the vid and i cbf to reexport)

and 2. i think i've mapped out the whole storyline for TAS gahhh my heart already hurts. i'm pretty set on an ending and it's gonna rip my heart out to write (in the best way) but leaves space for a long epilogue (or possibly even a second fic lol we'll see if my interest holds, i either fixate for a few weeks on an idea or i'm locked in for a year). as of now the fic will be set from july 2005 to june 2006 + the epilogue aughghgh but i gen have sm more i could write if i were to do a time skip and write a second fic, i just have so many other aus i wanna write if i can prove to myself i can commit to chaptered fics like this so :')

all the major events are plotted, most gaps in between are filled with the scenes i've been brainstorming in my docs, but i'm sure i'll come up with plenty more as i go knowing how i operate rip lol. esp going thru asks, i still have so many to get back to regarding tas i'm sorryyy!! honestly sometimes i read them and have to go straight to my doc to plot and then i forget to respond to the actual ask lol y'all are cooking <3

this fic is gonna be sooo long, def longer than yadiym. i'm thinking minimum 12 chapters if i end up sticking to this stupid long wordcount per chapter but the story/plot keeps expanding as i write so i'm probably gonna eat my words and idm as long as i can keep myself fixated/inspired lol :')

also don't mind me i'm just yapping to myself atp bc it helps me to post my progress somewhere other than in my notes app so i can refer back easier and also bc it makes me hold myself accountable if i speak it into the universe lmaoo i'm peer pressuring myself xoxo

[ghostlandtoo]

diva how are u pumping out this much quality fanfiction all the time like woah. like genuinely what is ur secret

this is killing me thank youuuu!!!! tbh the main thing is that i am a fast typer and i really do set aside time daily to write, but buddie specifically is like a parasite controlling my body and forcing me to write

[allastoredeer]

If it's not too much work, could you share what your outlining process is like? I always feel a little lost when I try outlining my fics and I know the process is different for everyone but I feel like it would help to know what others do. Every time I try to google help I get processes for original novel writing, and it doesn't feel as applicable to writing a short fanfic.

I would love to :3

There are actually a few different ways I outline, and sometimes it depends on the length of the fic and how complex the plot is.

I'll use one of my saved radiostatic prompts as an example (it also gives me an excuse to sit down and actually outline it hehe)

So, sometimes just the prompt itself is a good enough outline for me (this is dependent on how long I think the fic is going to be. If it's short, sometimes the prompt itself works and I don't need to go in-depth. I say "prompt" but that also can mean a specific scene in your head that you want to write, or a concept, or even a piece of fan-art that inspired you).

Here's the paragraph prompt I wrote for this radiostatic one-shot/short fic (spoilers, I guess):

So sometimes, just this is enough for me to start writing the fic (my prompts do tend to get a little big because I like to add a lot of detail - about the scene or concept that grabbed my attention - so that I capture all the vibes and emotions that I want to incorporate.

But sometimes, it helps to go more in-depth so I'm not overwhelmed trying to get to the part of the fic that I want to write (NOTE: It is totally fine if you write out the scene/parts that you want to write the most, even if it's in the middle or the end. You can always fill in the blanks after. Or you can just post the scene you wanted to write without adding more. It's up to you).

I like to figure out what scenes happen that lead up to the parts I want to write, so sometimes, I'll make a bullet-point list of chronological scenes, plot-points, and details. For example:

And etc... you continue on until you've hashed out the sequence of events that take place in the story. This doesn't have to be super detailed (it can be really brief and to the point) and doesn't it have to be super clinical either. Just have fun and write down whatever silly thoughts you have in your head.

You bullet-point list can be as simple as:

Alastor goes downstairs to do exercise.

Vox shows up to do the exercise as well (invited by Charlie)

They get into an argument about modern technology.

Vox leaves.

It's really just about putting down the sequence of events starting from the very beginning to the very end. You can keep it simple like the above example

OR

You can make it even more detailed by doing an in-depth summary of the fic, scene by scene, plot point by plot point, until you get to the end (this is what I usually do because it gets everything planned out and on the page, down to the smallest details). For example:

And then it goes on like this until I've outlined the entire fic. You can be silly with this. Just have fun. Let yourself ramble and get all you're ideas out. Don't try to stick to a rigid plan, let the story flow naturally.

Then, once I've finished my outline, I use it as a guide as I write the rough draft. The thing about outlines is that you don't have to follow exactly what you planned. It's okay to diverge or adds things or cut things out. It really is just a loose guide to help you through the events of the story and get your thoughts on paper.

Additionally: You don't even have to fully finish the outline if you don't want to. Sometimes you get half of it done before you want to start writing, and that's fine. The rest of the story will reveal itself as you go.

If I'm doing a multi-chaptered fic, sometimes I'll break the overall idea of the story into pre-determined chapters and summarize it section by section. Or, I'll just be a maniac and summarize the entire fic in one big, super long, super detailed block of text. Another staticradio fic I'm currently outlining is 16,152 words long and I'm not even close to being done. I expected this fic to get super long and complex, so writing it out in a very chronological and detailed manner helps it feel less daunting. AND now I have every plot point, twist, emotional scene, and bit foreshadowing planned out and already placed where I want it to show up in the fic. It's great. It makes me life easier when I actually buckle down and write the rough draft.

Just as a final note, I want to say that everyone's process is different. This is how I outline, but I know it won't work for everyone. It's all about finding what method works for you.

I'll say that one of the most important to do while outlining is simply having fun with it. Make it your hype list. Make every scene you jot down a scene you're excited to write. Make yourself want to write it so it doesn't feel like a chore to slog through.

Best advice I've ever recieved: If you're bored writing a scene, the audience will be bored reading it.

Have fun and write the story you wanna write 👉👉

Hope this helped!

[zestyzigzagoon]

We are so back with chapter three. Maybe not by Sunday night like I had hoped, but we are back nonetheless. Here's a little snippet below :) this scene takes place approximately ten seconds before something gloriously dumb happens.

[overlymetaromantic]

what is your process between planning out / drawing each episode?

It's mildly chaotic LMAO 😂 A lot of the pre-work I do is either done in my head via daydreaming lol or just done right on the spot—I usually have specific vibes or goals for each of my chapters, but not usually a fully laid out plan of how each chapter/panel will look until I start sketching them out :') There's a reason I keep a massive buffer ahahaha, I would not be able to sustain my process otherwise 😂 orz I do have some degree of a system aside from that, though!

I always start every episode by sketching the whole thing out. This is usually done to figure out how I'm pacing the scene as a whole, though admittedly it is wildly hit or miss whether I actually have my dialogue planned at this stage. I admittedly tend not to keep these particular sketches, but I was able to dig up one as an example of how sketchy the sketch is!

Even if I don't know what the characters are going to say, I do always try to plan panels with space for dialogue, since it's no secret I write a LOT ahahahaha. If I still don't know what the characters are going to say by the time I finish my inks (which I usually do right on top of my sketch layer as a one-and-done, unless a pose REALLY needs some reworking lol), I sometimes turn to my Google Doc of notes and script things out there; otherwise, I just figure it out based on my end goal for the chapter and how the overall vibes of the character posing turned out 😂

I'll usually add the dialogue in before I figure out background effects, since I often cut corners and skip doing any real details in spaces that get covered by the word balloons anyway (I'll also use them to cover up bits of art that I don't like but don't feel are worth fixing lololol). I have a handful of go-to brushes and texture effects I use throughout the comic as a whole for consistency, and then I keep layering them until I like the final result!

From there it's rinse and repeat inking/dialogue/background for each set of two panels until I finish the episode, since my files are designed to include two panels per final image! I don't know if this is in any way helpful as a tutorial, but I do think it's a fair example of my advice that you should find a method that works best for you ahaha—in my case, my order of operations is very much based on the order of things I like to do the most to the least, set up in a way where by the time I do the thing I like the least (backgrounds ahahaha), the next immediate thing in my queue is to do the thing I like the most (inking) for the next set of panels! If I did all the inks for the entire chapter instead of a couple of panels at a time, then actually finishing of the chapter would be SUCH a slog because then I'd have to figure out the dialogue (which takes me the longest) AND do the background details all in one go too, and the toddler part of my brain just wouldn't wanna 😂😂😂

[wrongcaitlyn]

do you have any tips on writing fanfics or just writing in general? usually anytime i try to write anything i can't help but just think it's too poorly written to like it. the dear readerverse is genuinely such a well written series and i look up to that type of ff writing so much (sorry if that sounds weird LOL! it's meant to be a compliment)

ahhsdf thank you so much!!! this is going to sound so basic but. truly the only way you can get better, i think, is to keep writing. i KNOW that's not the answer that anyone wants, but trust me when i say dear reader verse is far from the first thing i've written - i went through all the cringy phases, all the horrible writing tropes, the stilted dialogue and bad syntax. and writing is the only way to recognize what you don't like about your writing and how to improve! we have to push through the lowkey shitty phase to get to the good stuff :)

that being said, for me, the greatest motivation to keep writing has just been to completely obsess over an idea. at that point, you love it so much that you can't stand not seeing it, and then you HAVE to write it. while writing, you'll slowly get better, you'll probably be reading at the same time and learning tips and forming your style. just keep pushing through it, i know that ive had several writers block phases where i thought everything i was writing was shitty, and then when looking back it actually turned out to be pretty decent!

and in the end, the quality of the writing isn't the most important factor, especially when it comes to fanfic - something that you're doing primarily for yourself, for free, out of your love for the canon material. it's the fact that you managed to put your thoughts and ideas onto paper in the first place! as long as you've written something, you're on the right track.

[thrashz]

coughing and hacking and screaming the entire time

[plusultraetc]

20 and 2 for the ask game ?

Tysm for the ask :D

2. Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

PLAN FOR SURE. I've tried writing without an outline in the past—both fics and original work—and I have very rarely been successful 😭 At the very least I need a list of all the plot/character/emotional beats I want to include in a scene to function. I know a lot of writers who write without an outline & I am in awe, because I simply Cannot.

20. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

Finding new ways to say 'they looked at each other'

I think I've mentioned before that anxiety and guilt are both very common themes in my fics, but then, so are comfort and encouragement—I try not to let characters wallow for long. I also feel like I talk about voices kind of a lot? Like, I struggle to describe facial expressions, but I love to describe someone's tone of voice, usually in terms that have little to do with actual sound lol

[willowcrowned]

paper due in 27 hrs no figures made outline yet unfinished and dopamine levels are at ZERO i may lie back and sink down into the burning center of the earth as my skeleton is crushed by pressure unimaginable