# Outlining a complex scene?



## The Backward OX (May 24, 2010)

Is there a simple way to outline a complex part of a story so that afterwards the writer merely expands the outline to provide a flowing piece of writing?

I’m writing this scene that has many twists and turns. In the original draft it was full of holes. Now, every time I get one twist set out in a believable way, it fouls up some other part of the story and I then have to rewrite the fouled-up part. Then, when I’ve done that, another part falls prey to the last change. And so it goes on. I’ve been working on this scene on and off for three days now, it’s only about 1.3K words, and I’m beginning to go stir-crazy. 

Maybe I’m going at it all wrong. Maybe there’s a trick to writing complexity. 

 You tell me.


----------



## ppsage (May 24, 2010)

oops, bad math


----------



## Linton Robinson (May 24, 2010)

Porcupines are also incredibly difficult to kill


----------



## JosephB (May 24, 2010)

Plot it out on the wall with magazine clippings, thumb tack_s_ and bits of string in a shed behind your house -- and see what happens.


----------



## Ilasir Maroa (May 24, 2010)

I'm sure you can apply the Snowflake Method to a scene.


----------



## The Backward OX (May 24, 2010)

Ilasir Maroa said:


> I'm sure you can apply the Snowflake Method to a scene.


 
Thanks but no thanks. That was one of the first things I discarded, years ago, for being the greatest load of codswallop it had ever been my misfortune to stumble across.


----------



## The Backward OX (May 24, 2010)

JosephB said:


> Plot it out on the wall with magazine clippings, thumb tack_s_ and bits of string in a shed behind your house -- and see what happens.



Tried that. The mice ate the string.


----------



## Ilasir Maroa (May 24, 2010)

The Backward OX said:


> Thanks but no thanks. That was one of the first things I discarded, years ago, for being the greatest load of codswallop it had ever been my misfortune to stumble across.




Personally I think it's pretty stupid, but it seemed to have the expandability for what you were trying to do.


----------



## JosephB (May 24, 2010)

The Backward OX said:


> Tried that. The mice ate the string.



Here's my WIP:







Close-up:


----------



## MrSteve (May 25, 2010)

The only thing I can think of would be to simplify it in some way. Maybe start off with bullet points to cover each segment of what's happening. Then, make sure you get them in the right order and walk through it. I mean physically walk through it to make sure it is possible. 

I used to use Lego actually. Build the scene that my characters were in and then I could move through it like some sort of strategy game. I think that the main point is that anything complex that you're having a problem with needs to be broken down somehow in order to tackle it efficiently. Having said that, I'm not a fan of the snowflake method either but I know if helps some people.

Perhaps it just needs a second eye? If you want, please feel free to send me the section you're having difficulty with, including some notes, and I'd be happy to go through it.


----------



## garza (May 25, 2010)

I'm not qualified myself to offer advice on fiction. But when I try to write fiction, I use the method Faulkner claimed he used. He said he created his characters, then followed them around and wrote down what they did. 

It's possible you have to be drinking whatever he was drinking to make that work, because it's never worked for me. When I create a character he takes one look over his shoulder, sees me, hops on a bus and disappears. Female characters tend to use taxis, but the result is the same, a 25 word description of someone getting in a vehicle and going away.

The system might work well for others.


----------



## The Backward OX (May 25, 2010)

garza said:


> I'm not qualified myself to offer advice on fiction. But when I try to write fiction, I use the method Faulkner claimed he used. He said he created his characters, then followed them around and wrote down what they did.
> 
> It's possible you have to be drinking whatever he was drinking to make that work, because it's never worked for me. When I create a character he takes one look over his shoulder, sees me, hops on a bus and disappears. Female characters tend to use taxis, but the result is the same, a 25 word description of someone getting in a vehicle and going away.
> 
> The system might work well for others.


I've heard many people say the same thing, about their characters - following them around and writing down what they do.

Like you, that has never worked for me either. I simply don't understand it. Perhaps it means that people whose minds work the way yours and mine do are deigned not to write fiction. Maybe fiction writing is after all the domain only of those who are always high on something.


----------



## moderan (May 25, 2010)

The Backward OX said:


> Maybe fiction writing is after all the domain only of those who are always high on something.


That's a fiction in and of itself. Congratulations! You've succeeded. A story is simply a protracted lie. That's it.


----------



## The Backward OX (May 25, 2010)

?


----------



## moderan (May 25, 2010)

Needs explaining? A) It's fiction that the people who create fiction are high on something. It's also very insulting, but we're traveling the high road here. By saying what you did, you've created a fiction.
B) Any fiction is essentially a lie. It's a made-up something. You can get as high-falutin' as you like, but that's the bedrock. The rest is attitude.
C) I deigned to ignore the _gotcha_. Feel free to edit.
Both you and garza have what it takes.


----------



## Ilasir Maroa (May 25, 2010)

The Backward OX said:


> I've heard many people say the same thing, about their characters - following them around and writing down what they do.
> 
> Like you, that has never worked for me either. I simply don't understand it. Perhaps it means that people whose minds work the way yours and mine do are deigned not to write fiction. Maybe fiction writing is after all the domain only of those who are always high on something.



Ox, there are many different ways to write.  Most of them do not involve being high.  Plenty do not involve "following your characters around and writing what they do."


----------



## MrSteve (May 25, 2010)

The Backward OX said:


> I've heard many people say the same thing, about their characters - following them around and writing down what they do.


 
I presume that means you have never had one of your characters speak to you? I hadn't for ages then, when it happened, it scared the living daylights out of me.


----------



## The Backward OX (May 26, 2010)

> Originally Posted by *moderan*
> 
> 
> A) It's fiction that the people who create fiction are high on something. It's also very insulting, but we're traveling the high road here. By saying what you did, you've created a fiction.
> B) Any fiction is essentially a lie. It's a made-up something. You can get as high-falutin' as you like, but that's the bedrock. The rest is attitude.


 
I don’t know how it is that you manage _so often_ to think that a poster is talking about something other than what the poster is really talking about.

It seemed to me that garza and I shared a belief that characters do not exist outside the writer’s head. What your nonsense has to do with that fails me. 




MrSteve said:


> I presume that means you have never had one of your characters speak to you? I hadn't for ages then, when it happened, it scared the living daylights out of me.


 
See first sentence, second paragraph, above.


 This next is for both of you: 

Garza and I believe the writer tells the characters how to behave. Other writers appear to believe the characters tell the writer. And that is why we both believe writers in that second group must be high on something. For f*ck's sake. A character is squiggles on a page just like these squiggles you're reading now. These squiggles aren't telling me what to do. The only way for that to happen would be for me to be high on something.


----------



## alanmt (May 26, 2010)

OX, 

I mostly fall into the first group. 

But sometimes I fall into the second group. The best I can explain it is to say sometimes I have a definite idea of how things will go in a chapter, but then I sit down to write it and I am inspired as I am writing and I add a little detail or make a little change and I keep writing and sometimes this little change leads the story off in a whole new direction. And even though I am doing the writing and I am making the decisions, it can feel like the story or characters have gotten away from me.

I don't know the thought processes of other writers in this second group. But I would guess that they tend to be either free form writers who may have a general plot idea as they begin writing but rely a lot on spur of the moment inspiration to create the story as they write or that they are empathetic character-creators who create - on paper or in their minds - such a strong personality for their leading characters as they write that sometimes they have to abandon the previously plotted actions because they come to realize that X character wouldn't do that, he would do Y instead.


----------



## moderan (May 26, 2010)

The Backward OX said:


> I don’t know how it is that you manage _so often_ to think that a poster is talking about something other than what the poster is really talking about.
> 
> It seemed to me that garza and I shared a belief that characters do not exist outside the writer’s head. What your nonsense has to do with that fails me.


 It seems to me that you're more interested in telling others what you think about things than seeing what others think of what you have to say. I wash my hands of you.






> See first sentence, second paragraph, above.





> This next is for both of you:
> 
> Garza and I believe the writer tells the characters how to behave. Other writers appear to believe the characters tell the writer. And that is why we both believe writers in that second group must be high on something. For f*ck's sake. A character is squiggles on a page just like these squiggles you're reading now. These squiggles aren't telling me what to do. The only way for that to happen would be for me to be high on something.


----------



## alanmt (May 26, 2010)

OX, I find that for complex plotting over a longer work with multiple characters it is important to have a chronology - a simple timeline of what is happening to who, when and where.


----------



## Ilasir Maroa (May 26, 2010)

The Backward OX said:


> I don’t know how it is that you manage _so often_ to think that a poster is talking about something other than what the poster is really talking about.
> 
> It seemed to me that garza and I shared a belief that characters do not exist outside the writer’s head. What your nonsense has to do with that fails me.
> 
> ...


 


NTO, it's a figure of speech. As characters are developed through the words the writer puts on the page, the writer begins to get a better idea of how a given character would believably act in a given situation. It has to do with a change in perception which conflicts with the writer's original draft of the scene. When people say "My character spoke to me", it's just another way of saying "I realized I had to change something."

If you take such comments literally, you're going to get the wrong idea of what people are talking about.


I'd like to remind everybody, including myself, that the thread is about ways to outline a complex scene.  To get back on topic:

NTO, there is no formula that will allow you to expand an outline into a well-flowing piece of writing every time.  You can keep filling in details for an outline until it approaches a wordcount similar to actual prose, but that doesn't make it well-crafted prose.  It makes it a very detailed outlining.

A basic strategy that you could build from is starting with what you want to happen in the scene, and progressivle breaking it down into smaller and smaller chunks.  First a quick what:  "there's a fight".  Then a who: "between Michael and his father".  Then a when: probably: "in the evening" since it's a date. Then a where: "in the kitchen". Then add a why:  "because he wants the car for his date that night and his father won't let him have it".  Then a how: "with physical blows/verbal attacks/etc".  Then break each of those down further.  

I'm sure you already know how to outline, so I'll stop there.  From here on, it's really just trial and error.  A formula can only take you so far.


----------



## Sam (May 26, 2010)

I have never been high on anything when I've written, and I've finished seven novels -- all of them over 100,000 words. It is a myth that you have to be high to create good fiction. All being high does is release you from the fear that you've ingrained into yourself. The fear that tells you that you "can't" do this and you "shouldn't" do that. 

If you want to write a complex scene, OX, how do you think being high is going to aid you? You need all your faculties about you to attempt such a thing. You really think being stoned is going to magically write the scene for you? It'll probably come out arse-about-face.


----------



## The Backward OX (May 26, 2010)

moderan said:


> I wash my hands of you.


Promises, promises.


----------



## The Backward OX (May 26, 2010)

> Originally Posted by *alanmt*
> 
> 
> OX, I find that for complex plotting over a longer work with multiple characters it is important to have a chronology - a simple timeline of what is happening to who, when and where.


 


Ilasir Maroa said:


> A basic strategy that you could build from is starting with what you want to happen in the scene, and progressivle breaking it down into smaller and smaller chunks.


Thanks to both of you. I'll see what I can do.


----------



## ppsage (May 26, 2010)

Backwards? _OX, I find that for complex plotting over a longer work with multiple characters it is important to have a chronology...?_
Frontwards? _OX, I find a chronology important for complex plotting etc. ...?_ 

Maybe?


----------



## alanmt (May 26, 2010)

Only if one wishes to sacrifice prolixity for lucidity.


----------



## ppsage (May 26, 2010)

alanmt said:


> Only if one wishes to sacrifice prolixity for lucidity.


 
Which, admittedly, one may often not. 

In initial composition though, I think we tend to follow our thought back to the real subject. _I thought it was something really interesting. Something really interesting pervaded my thought. 
_


----------



## C.M.C. (May 26, 2010)

Just write down what's supposed to happen so that it makes sense, then go back and expand it into a scene.  It doesn't have to be rocket science.


----------



## vangoghsear (May 26, 2010)

One method is to write elements of the complex scene on sticky notes or note cards and place them on a time line.  You can move them around as you discover timing issues.


----------

