Have a plot outline, now what?

[RcGrant]

Originally Posted by Writers Blocked

I appreciated the humour, even though I wasn't aware of the inspirational source, but I still don't think the writing was particularly good. Fun, yes, with some interesting ideas, but hardly an oscar winning effort. After all, Barb Wire was loosely based on Casablanca and they are on record as my favourite and most hated films of all time

Having said that, you may have given me reason to re-evaluate my criteria for good or bad writing. After all, I'm a huge fan of the Evil Dead films and while I'll often quote them, I've never really considered whether the writing qualifies as good or bad.

At least they're all better than the [insert genre] Movie "parodies."

Popular certainly isn't synonomous with good, so I don't think you have to find something good to enjoy it. Then again, it depends on your definition of good. Does something have to be likable to be good? I know I like plenty of things I don't consider good writing, but I know, hands down, when I see good writing I fall in love with it.

Trouble is, I can't pin down what good writing is.

So, back to the zombies, then?

[Pentagathus]

Hi.
I was just wondering wether anyone else created their stories world before they made the plotline. I can't seem to finish my plotline without having my resources and a map finished.

[Lith]

If you gave a million zombies a million typewriters, would you eventually resurrect everyone in Hamlet?

[Aorrowan]

"They were the blest of times, they were the blurst of times? Stupid monkeys!"

[TheEndIsNigh]

Originally Posted by Lith

You start writing.

Page one, chapter one, sentence one. "In the beginning..." and you keep going until you get to "... the end."

If you want to keep doing top-down, then you break your story down into scenes (a lot of writers advise the 3x5 cards at this point), then fill out details, like who's where, what the setting, and theme of the scene are, etc.

But a lot will probably change in the actual writing, and even knowing where you're going with it isn't the same as giving the piece actual atmosphere, which IMO is as exciting as creating from scrap.

Lith: a person after my own heart and a fine concept. Although, if the idea is to finish a book as well then it would be better not to hang about in the short time we all have left.

Originally Posted by dreir

I like onions, too. The more onions the better!

- Dreir -

Indeed and one of the few vegetables worthy if a good hurling competition.

Originally Posted by Lith

If you gave a million zombies a million typewriters, would you eventually resurrect everyone in Hamlet?

Well my monkeys rattled of Shakespeare in just a couple of months. The search for the elixir of life is taking longer as is the cure for poverty, world peace and hunger. Though they're making some progress

Originally Posted by Aorrowan

"They were the blest of times, they were the blurst of times? Stupid monkeys!"

I can't allow this slur on monkey's to go unchallenged. For a start see above. I think the mistake you made was in not advertising correctly and in not offering decent wages. All my monkeys have ready access to Medicare and are allowed as many bananas as it take to get their fingers in gear.

If you just recruit from the ones lazing around in street trees with no ambition or the ones the government employment agencies send then what can you expect. Rubbish in rubbish out. It really annoys me this 'stereotyping' of monkeys who some have argued are in the more intelligent species on the planet.

Pyan

Everyone seems to agree that it's the blank sheet of paper that's the hardest bit to overcome, so just start - if it's rubbish, it doesn't matter, as long as you make that start.

And now to the more mundane part of the post.

Pyan is right, the blank sheet is the death knoll of making a start. I find the secret to starting is just that. Write anything, write about nothing to do with the story, write about monkeys, write about the weather.

Once you've broken the ice and actually got a word down the impetus takes over if your story has any drive lingering inside you. If not, go and watch a pie hurling event and write it up. Post in on the Pie hurling thread. Slowly though, you'll find starting becomes less difficult and you become prolific and start to get PM's saying for Christs sake stop it with the pie throwing reports

[dreir]

Didn't you mean, onion hurling event?

- Dreir -

[TheEndIsNigh]

Dreir:

Yes Dreir that's correct. There is, I'm sure you are aware, currently a hot debate on the Arguments thread regarding the worthiness of salad tossing and vegetable hurling events. (sorry for the off topic reference, these things are serious and need clarification) I was merely pointing out that the onion was indeed one of the few worthies IMHO.

Oops I see my error in the original post - what an idiot please forgive.

[WafflesToo]

Just one more peice of evidence that Heinlen is in fact, a jackass.

Back on topic, all I do is come up with important scenes and roughly come up with how I want them to go. Of course during the course of writing things change and some of my previous planning gets dumped, but part of being a good writer is knowing when to remove something from your story.

...even if you really liked it.

...really, REALLY liked it :'(

[ChrisBfla]

Hi:

Good point. On both of my novels (one published and one sitting on my publisher's desk) I created the plot ideas in my head and just went to work on them and started writng. HOWEVER, when I got up to the more tricky passages, where characters nd sub-plots needed to converge, I did make an outline as well as a time line for the events and the people in my stories to interact.

Also, pull a lot from your own experiences and even find interesting facts from reseach that can be woven into your story or create a plot twist.

Chris Berman

[Aorrowan]

Well...good news! I have a beginning. To be honest, it might not actually be a beginning yet, but it is a start if not a beginning. I have a feeling i might have to write the scene that happens before this one, but as it was the one that was causing me so much trouble, i took your advice, skipped ahead, and voila! I have a quasi-beginning. Hurray!

Thanks everyone for your input!

TheEnd...I say, your monkeys sound suspiciously like union monkeys to me! Medicare? Bananas? Decent wages? Let me guess, do they receive severance packages and pension as well? Days off with pay?? Bah humbug to that!

[Lith]

Yeah, but are they unDEAD monkeys? THAT's the important question.

When I started really (I mean REALLY) writing, I laid out a couple of rules that worked pretty well- start at the beginning, don't skip around in space/time, and don't rewrite until finished with draft one. Doesn't work for every writer, but it helped me a LOT.

[TheEndIsNigh]

Arrowman:

I can certainly furnish The End.

The monkey's are all very intelligent. There are complex reasons why I with my optimistic outlook have somehow got involved with the search for the elixir of life which should be explained here :-

Book length - Is this a worrying new trend

and further down the thread.

Basically following the mass layoff of experiment animals a bunch of them approached me following my posts on that thread. Since they were up for a bit of experimenting themselves they have no qualms about using there previous comrades in their own research. Motivation and good working conditions always produce good results in my opinion. There are certainly no unions involved they are very strict about that sort of thing. Nowadays it's almost an autonomous unit. The monkeys organise the research find the test animals and naturally type everything up themselves. All I have to do is sign the cheques for the bananas.

And Lith

Although they have had some success in the undead line of research it was decided to shelve it as it was thought to be too hard a sell.

[gary compton]

Originally Posted by Aorrowan

I have a general outline of the plot for my book, and a good idea about all the major scenes i want to include. But now, i'm at a loss...what do i do next

Sell your soul to the Devil...life will change forever.

[Aorrowan]

Hmmm. Perhaps this explains the recent banana shortages at the local groceries....

[flynx]

Now wait just a minute. If we're going to do the job at all we need an infinite number of monkeys. That's all monkeys that ever were and will ever be and then more. So in the grand scheme of things unionised monkeys, flying monkeys, undead monkeys and yes. even the vampire monkeys will be only a smidgen of an infinite number.

(I realise that vampire monkeys are technically undead monkeys but they sulk if you just lump them in)

Now the major problem is that this infinite number of monkeys will need an infinite number of machines (typewriters, word processors and Amstrad cpc 464s)

So you have your infinite number of monkeys and logically, because they are made of matter then there just isn't any substance left to make any typewriters.

Now you need an infinite number of monkeys minus at least one to have a typewriter exist. Then they have to take turns which would take absolutely ages. But that doesn't matter because an infinite number minus one is a finite number and any number which isn't infinite leaves an infinity of numbers, so the work is just never going to get finished and you're going to end up with such classic opening lines as:

Call me simon

A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twycross.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Curly Wurly

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single antelope...

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and sassafrass.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking illegibly

In a hole in the ground there lived a holbein