Blank Play Writing Outline

Here's the Blank Playwriting Outline for your use.

Character:
Want/Goal: 
Antagonist/conflicting forces: 




Structure
Part 1
Inciting Incident: 
Initial Point of Attack: 
Major Dramatic Question: 


Part 2
Character embarks on struggle/search for answers/goals: 
Conflicts:
Crisis: 
Action that leads to conclusion:


Part 3
Final Conflict:
Character's goals achieved or lost: 
New order:

One Way to Outline Your Story for NaNoWriMo

I'm currently flipping back and forth on whether to do NaNoWriMo or not. I'm chugging along in my current work in progress (Sex, Drugs, and Steamwork), but I'm not finished. At any rate, my playwriting class has given me a unique way of looking at the structure of a story.

Before I begin, I will discuss the Six Elements of Aristole's theory on drama. This is primarily for playwriting, but I'll try to express what I think the literary equivalents are. I don't think I'm necessarily "qualified" to do this, but I am studying the stuff, so it does help to see how certain forms of the medium can be translated into fiction writing, which is what I typically work with.

So, Artistotle proposed in order for drama to work, it must include these six things:
character
action
ideas
language
music
spectacle

For the purposes of fiction writing, I believe that spectacle would be the hook in someways. For something like Harry Potter, the spectacle/hook would be the magic. I think, the spectacle in the novel is the one thing that carries through it. In playwriting, spectacle is what is seen on the stage and the author of the book we're reading for class (The Art and Craft of Playwriting by Jeffrey Hatcher) states that it's whatever looks neat onstage. In the case of a novel, I believe, the constant thing that is the cool undercurrent of the book. In the case of Harry Potter, again, I believe the spectacle is magic. However, magic isn't used for everything little thing, but without it, you lose the "Harriness" of it all.

Music refers to sound effects. In novels, this could be extended to sensory information such as touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound.

Now on to the outline. I'm going to use the first Hunger Games book as an example. (contains spoilers for the first book, but not the other two)

Character: Katniss Everdeen
Want/Goal: To protect herself and her family.
Antagonist and/or conflicting forces: The Capitol and more directly, the Gamemakers and the Hunger Games.

Structure
Part 1: Beginning. This should happen ideally in the first few chapters of your novel.
Inciting Incident: Katniss's little sister, Prim, despite all odds, is called into the Hunger Games. (The inciting incident is the event that pushes the character to action.)
Initial point of attack: Katniss volunteers to go in her sister's place. (The Initial Point of Attack is the action that your character takes in response to the inciting incident.) 
Major Dramatic Question: Will Katniss survive the Hunger Games? (Major Dramatic Question or MDQ refers to the dramatic moment of the story, what the story is hinged on. Think of it as the dun dun DUNN! moment)

Part 2: Middle
Character embarks on struggle/search for answers/goals: Katniss struggles to survive the Games. (this refers to what your character has to deal with in order to achieve their goal)
Conflicts: Katniss has to deal with the games themselves, faking a romantic relationship with Peeta to get sponsors, hunger, trackerjacker stings, the other players...etc (these are the obstacles that prevent your character from achieving their goal.)
Crisis: I think things get really bad when Rue dies. If the stakes weren't high enough before, they are now.Also when Peeta goes missing. (the Oh Snap! moment, past the point of no return...etc, the moment when the character has come too far to turn back) 
Action that leads to conclusion: Katniss dedicates her energy to saving Peeta. (what steps does the character take in response to the crisis)

Part 3: Conclusion
Final Conflict: After everything is said and done, there are only two tributes left: Katniss and Peeta. Both take attempt to take the nightlock to avoid fighting each other. (This is the climax of the novel, the peak of the action)
Character's goals achieved or lost: Katniss achieved her goal, first by surviving the Games, and secondly by providing her family with shelter and stability. (this is the resolution. Has the hero achieved their goals?)
New order: Katniss and her family move to Victor's Village after winning the games. Katniss is now a political target for The Capitol. (This is what happens after everything is over, the denouement.)


Spectacle: The Hunger Games themselves. (remember this is the hook.)


I hope this diagram helps. I'm going to post my own diagram and a blank one for you to enjoy.

Do you have an outlining and plotting ideas or templates? 

Share in the comments!

NaNoWriMo: An Epic and Beautiful Fail

NaNoWriMo was an epic fail this year for me and I'm okay with that. For those who don't know (because I realize that I just assume everyone knows everything about me.), NaNoWriMo is a type of contest to see if one could write 50,000 words in 30 days. A lot of people can do it and congrats to the people who did. A lot of people can't do it and that's okay because sometimes life gets in the way and you have to set your priorities. Or sometimes the muse just doesn't show up and you're stuck writing the same chapter over and over again, trying to get it to work. I know that it was like that for me.

Something was holding me back from finishing, a bad case of writer's block or something. In my last few posts I have all these delusions of grandeur and bigger things, but I can't do anything with those dreams without having the story written. So what's preventing me from getting the story written? I don't know. Fear of failure? Fear of success? Fear of not writing again? I don't know, but what I do know is that I have to make it past it. I need to keep writing. Writing anything.

Why was this an epic fail? Because I didn't even make it 8,000 words. I'm okay with that because the beautiful part of this failure is that it sparked some evaluation and new ideas, ideas I wish I would have gotten at the beginnings on the month, but new ideas nonetheless.

One of the things I learned in NaNoWriMo is how much people push to see the things they want done get done. I also learned that it's okay to fail because you learn from your mistakes. I will use December as my own NaNoWriMo and work on several ideas that have been brewing in me since the beginning of this week.

The Worst NaNoWriMo Pep Talk Ever

November is the time when teachers like to pile midterms on students. I had two midterms and a paper due all on the same day. I maintained my grade in one class, did considerable worse on another class, and have yet to determine what my grade on the term paper was. In my defense, a lot of things were on my mind this month. I will admit that I didn't make proper use of my time in one class and that I underestimated the test. Needless to say, I didn't get any NaNoWriMo work done. None of the characters were cooperating and the story was at a stand still. I wanted to write because writing is my escape. I was so ready to throw in the towel and I'll explain why I didn't later.


For the past two years, it seems that people I know tend to die around this time. Last year, a man I was visiting in the hospice died and I didn't know for a month. No one ever told me. In fact, he died two days after my twentieth birthday and I was going to go visit him the day he died (I didn't know he was dead at this point), but I was extremely sick and couldn't make it. I had this feeling that the next time I would go back to that house, he wouldn't be there. I prepared myself for it, but I didn't want to be right.

This year, I had two cousins die unexpectedly. The cousin on my dad's side died in September, but we didn't find out for a couple weeks. We actually found out through the internet. Me, being the attention whore that I was (and will probably no longer be after this experience), decided to Google my name and my cousin's obituary was one of the first things that popped up. On top of that, I was on the phone with my mom at the time and I had to tell her that my cousin had died.

Then a couple weeks ago, the cousin on my mother's side passed away. My aunt's daughter. She wasn't feeling well and refused to go see a doctor (which unfortunately is how my other cousin died as well, by not following the doctors orders). She talked to my aunt in the morning and by the afternoon, she had passed away. They said that she had a stroke.

The funeral was November 19, 2009. It was a lovely service. People had a lot of nice things to say about her. It wasn't like those funerals where people fumbled for something nice to say, everything was genuine. I tried not to cry, but I did. I will be honest and say that I didn't really know either of my cousins very well. I'm the youngest of my first cousins at a measly 21 years old and both of them were well into their 40's. Their deaths just brought up feelings of losing people in life and reminded all of us that life is too short and that you never really know when it's your time to go.

One thing I love my family is our resiliency. We aren't exactly the close knit kind of family that celebrates every holiday together, but when you need support, we will be there. During the funeral, we cried and said our good-byes. An hour later, we were laughing and remembering, and celebrating life. Death is only a part of life.

So where does NaNoWriMo come into this? Some might be saying that it might be a little selfish to think about that when so much bad stuff has been happening. Writing has almost always been a therapeutic thing for me, so when that wouldn't work it got overwhelming. I didn't have an outlet. I read my stories online(I'm still behind on some of those), but I was too busy to pick up a pleasure book to read.

I deleted all the Sims 2 games from my computer (I had all the expansion sets that I borrowed from a friend) in favor of the Sims 3, then played it out to the point that it's not interesting anymore (not to mention that I couldn't make the people as hot as I could in the Sims 3. Something about that uncanny valley thing made them a bit too real and weird looking.) I wanted to start a new project with some of the ideas I had, but nothing was coming. In fact the only thing I had to look forward to this week was Glee (which was a descent episode imo, but last weeks was the best so far).

Why didn't I throw in the towel? Because life is too short. Who knows when I'll get an opportunity to push the story forward in such a fast paced manner. I got at least 2 1/2 descent usable episodes out of IAR in a matter of weeks and if I push myself I could at least attempt to reach 50,000. That's the whole heart of the matter, right? The journey to the 50,000 words, not exactly the words themselves. I had a 3 hour jam session that served as a therapeutic outlet as soon as I got back from the funeral. I needed it. But while critiquing and helping a friend on his music, I went into brainstorming mode and the ideas started to flow. I'm letting them sit for a little bit (I need to do some assignments and things) and will be trying to get 10,000-15,000 words before Thanksgiving.

Why you shouldn't throw in the towel?

• Your idea deserves to see itself in reality. Even if it's a "bad" idea, you'll have a tangible idea of your efforts in seeing your piece be completed. 
• Life is too short to give up (of course if you have other priorities that are more important, take care of those too/instead) 
• Just read the pep talks of well-known authors. They know what they are talking about. 
  

If you have to throw in the towel, there are plenty of opportunities to try it again.

• Script Frenzy
• Various groups on LJ that I'm a bit too lazy to find. (They are out there though)
• There's always next year. 

Good luck on your novels!
DFTBA

P.S. Still at 7,741 words, but still trying to push more out.