The hero often has doubts, just wants to stay in their safe existence Something happens to shake up the hero’s everyday life
The protagonist is introduced in their normal everyday life However, there’s a high chance that readers will still feel less engaged and emotionally involved. This is an important lesson, because while the diagram above is almost laughable, it might not be so obvious when stages are out of order when using a more advanced structure. Imagine what it would be like to read.Īpplying this distortion to the simplest of plot outline makes it clear why getting the stages out of order can be confusing, unsettling and even nonsensical. Imagine how a reader might feel if you wrote a story with the stages in this order: Using these stages will help ensure the story feels satisfying to a reader. So you may want to expand it into something like this:įor many people, this is enough of a structure on which to hang the main points of their story. End – He manages to stop an evil wizard from stealing an important artefact, and returns home confident and able to stand up for himselfīut that’s simplistic to the point of being of limited use.Middle – He joins a magical school and learns of great friends, enemies and challenges.Beginning – Harry is a bullied orphan living with his aunt and uncle, who mistreat him.The simplest plot outline could be based on the three act structure: Its sticks to the heart of the story – which is usually the personal journey of the protagonist, from who they are at the beginning to who they are at the end.įor some people an outline may simply be a few ideas floating around their head, for others it may be a 50,000 word document.įor our purposes, we’ll assume a plot outline is a written document of a few pages, covering key stages and turning points. It doesn’t list all of the chapters, or everything that happens in them.
It sketches out the underlying structure of your novel: its key stages, including critical developments and pivotal moments. It’s the bones on which you hang the flesh, blood, sweat and tears of your story.