Allow me to be honest here. I've had more experience outlining a standalone book (or the equivalent in terms of fanfiction) than I've had in terms of outlining a series. It's because, a lot of the time, I have literally no idea how to "drag out the story", so to speak. Of course, reading books on the subject seems to be a way of acquiring more info on this subject... but, as I've found, it's not easy to find such books about writing series'. Therefore, I have to ask everyone here. How should I go about writing a series outline, especially when I have so little to work with in terms of information? For reference, this is what I have in terms of my current series outline for the first LitRPG series I've got in mind: City in The Void Type: Original series Premise: An ordinary teen from Earth is dragged out of his home dimension into what amounts as a city stuck in a multidimensional void… and he’s now akin to a video game character. He has to complete quests in order to get home… but will home be there for him? Setting: Void City, a 50 mile cubed city in the middle of what’s called Dimensional Space, with each area having some prominence at least once in the series. Cast: Main Characters: Heroes: Davis Tomari (the ordinary teen from Earth now akin to a video game character) Emiri Takahata (an elf girl who has the ability to heal any wound with enough preparation) Yuki Clementine (a human girl(?) who has a strange control over winter-related powers) Rikku Yoko (a kitsune girl with an impeccable control over fire and wind) Yumi Kiba (a human girl with the best aim of all people in this city) Anastasia “Arthur” Vist (a human girl who is initially sexually confused and a rather capable knight) Celes Cole (a human girl treasure hunter(?) who loves to dress skimpy whenever she can get away with it) Villains: Drakken Crowley (a minor crime boss that rises in position slowly but surely due to his superiors getting killed off) Anna Alstreim (a woman in charge of many of Drakken’s soldiers/sex slaves, in spite of being one herself, though she chose to be one) Laura Inverse (a woman who specializes in the foulest of magicks in the multiverse) Tessa Durandal (a dominatrix who erotically enjoys causing suffering in others by any means necessary) Alistair Pendragon (a male dark knight who takes perverse joy in killing people) Elizabeth Tudor (a noble lady who is actually quite nasty) Plot Points: *insert plot points here* I hope you get what I'm talking about here.
Whether you write an outline or not has a lot to do with what kind of writer you are. There are some authors who write by discovery - meaning that they write and let the characters' actions happen organically as they create - and others who prefer to build an entire outline and have a predetermined story. Both are valid styles. I've always been a bit of a pantser (a discovery author), myself, but for my first LitRPG story, I'm doing an outline, just to make sure it all comes together the way I want. On an unrelated note... is there a reason why nearly all your heroes have Japanese names, while all your villains have European names? I found that a bit jarring when I read it.
I try to keep the main "beats" in the series as a whole - ie book 1 is a lot of intro, there's a big series reveal toward the end in one of the books, etc. Do you know how many books will be in your series?
Yeah, I'm aware of the different styles of writers. Personally, I'm something of a plantser, a hybrid of the two, but I lean more towards the plotter style. It's been a fun time for me... though I wish I knew how to fix my plotting abilities a fair bit. ...you're talking to someone who is a near-certified Japanophile. That has definitely skewed my ability to come up with names from other cultures. Hmm... I actually don't know yet. I was thinking about 12 or so for the time being... but, then again, I've grown up with manga and anime more than I'd like to admit. My main idea is that there would be something like a manga story arc covering a few books, and following arcs would allow for more development of the world, among other things.
Okay, so with 12 books, i would do something like... books 1 - 3 (First "act" of the series) books 4 - 9 (Second "act" of the series) books 10 - 12 (Third "act" of the series and the big climax) You still want to hit all the beats within each individual book, but you can have certain books concentrate on certain aspects of the entire series. Does that make any sense? Even if you decided to go with a longer series later, the first 12 books could be the first "season" or main series arc...
Actually, that does make sense, thankfully. I'm glad you said that to me... well, then again, I'm not so much a 3-Act structure guy as I am one trying to discover a structure of my own. I'll see what can be done with the structure I'm developing, if it'll help me with this or not, for the time being.
Best of luck. I'm a reader and when I write it's mostly one offs. I can't seem to drag things, instead I take a pair of scissors and shave off what I think is unnecessary One of my favorite formats for series is breaking the book down to episodes. Drew Hayes is quite good at those. His series (Fred the vampire accountant) is formatted so that each book is broken down to 4 parts so it never drags. In the end it comes down to what kind of story are you telling, the hero's journey the most common one for a series (the MC wants or needs something, he ends up in an adventure to get it, he returns home with some kind of change. Repeat.)
Think of it like the sub-atomic world (electrons spinning around) as similar to the macro - ie the swirling of planets around a sun... Even if you don't follow that exactly, it should give you an idea of how to plot/plan your series so it doesn't fall flat or meander like some tend to do...
Well, as I said, I'm a bit of a pantser, too, so the idea of outlining - for me, anyway - is a bit of a foreign one. Still, I'm giving it a shot, using the basic layout from Kaytastic's excellent YouTube video on how to outline a story to plot a series (that someone else suggested in a different thread). And like Paul suggested, that includes a three-act format for the series, as well. (I will probably not stick with her 27-chapter plan, however, as the story I'm building is one with multiple POV characters.) Like you, I've never been a huge fan of the three act format. The closest thing I've done to outlining in the past has been mind-mapping, which was more successful than I expected it to be. It led to more organic growth for the plotline, though it did manage to make the story meander into unexpected territory a few times. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. Have you considered going with mind-mapping?
Okay, for a bit of an example of how I tend to attempt writing a series outline, I pulled up a Google doc with a more complete outline on it... for a given value of "complete". The doc can be found here: Grail Works LTD Dario Stories (Planning Doc) Heh... guess that makes us opposites. I can't help it when it comes to writing long stuff... but, unfortunately, I tend to have some serious commitment problems with my writing. Okay, yeah, that helps a lot. Thanks for that.
That's quite a lot to bite off and chew! How many novels have you written? You might want to simplify and start with something like a trilogy maybe? I'm one to talk when it comes to grand scale, though. Haha.
Unfortunately for me...? I tend to write with epics in mind. It's part of why my writing coach (who I started working with a couple of months ago) has started getting me to write a short story. It's meant to get me to work on something and actually finish it.
Yeah, I caught a bit of that in you - planning, planning, planning, and not getting it done. Start with a short story to explain your universe. Get something out! While I know where my series ends and most of the steps taken to get to that point, I do leave it loose/open enough to change as I get to know the characters even better via writing them. They've taken me to some pretty cool spaces. You want to make sure you're loose enough to be able to allow them to do their own thing sometimes.
Mind-mapping is akin to creating a flow-chart of ideas. Or like those crime boards you always see in procedural TV shows where someone has dozens of news clippings, photos, and sticky notes tacked to a corkboard with colored yarn connecting different people or stories listed on those boards. You start with a central node - the name of the book often works here - and then branch out, adding characters, locations, the timeline, plot elements, and so on. You branch out from characters to include motivations, items in their possession, etc., and then connect these all together as required by the story. So... say you have a MC who picked up a mystical dagger at an old ruined temple. On the characters branch, you'd have the MC node, and attached to it would be the dagger node. On the locations branch, you'd have the location in question, the temple. You can then add a connection between the dagger and the location, with a notation for the chapter in which the weapon was found. (Of course, you can add that notation in when it happens, rather than ahead of time, that way you can have it happen at the story's pace.) Some people use corkboard and yarn. Others use sticky notes or markers on a whiteboard or a piece of poster board. Others use mind-mapping software on their computers or apps on their phones or tablets. Use whatever works for you. If you want a more detailed idea of how it's done, check Google for mind-mapping fiction.
Yeah, I'm stuck with the odd curse of not actually getting things done, at least for right now... =_= Y'know what? I'll keep all that in mind and work on it. Hmm... that sounds like a good idea. I'll see what I can do with it.
I downloaded the mind mapping software VUE (Virtual Understanding Environment) and started playing around with it for an example. I haven't gotten to the plot stuff yet, and only just touched on a couple characters, but you can see basically how it works.
Hmm... that looks rather interesting. I believe I should get the software... now if only I didn't have to sign up in order to download it. =_=
