While I wait for word on one of the projects that I’m up for consideration, I have a story brewing in my head. Normally I’d scribble the idea on an oversize Post It note, stick it in my idea file and get on with the other projects rumbling around my desk. But this time I thought I’d try something different. I decided to spend the weekend getting the story down in a loose synopsis so that when I do have time to return to it, it’s not just a garbled sentence or two. It’s a possible book.

I decided to break the story down by plot points (some authors call them turning points, whatever floats your boat), write the points on index cards, then draft a synopsis. I swear to god, writing the story this way let the ideas flow so quickly and efficiently that I have the decent framework for something really useful.

Here’s what I did:

1. Lay in a supply of index cards

2. Wrote the following on the top of each (this is a loose amalgam of several different plotting methods)

  • The Ordinary World (taken from Vogler’s Hero’s Journey)
  • Trouble Starts
  • The Special World (where the protagonist starts coping with the trouble)
  • Trouble Gets Worse
  • Regrouping and More Struggle
  • Point of No Return (protagonist is too changed to go back to Ordinary World)
  • Pushed to the Brink
  • Protagonist Appears to have Lost (or The Black Moment)
  • Fighting Back
  • Trouble Ends

3. Then I started outlining a plot on the cards. I didn’t worry about theme or character. This was the time to get the bones down. Under each plot point, I had two, possibly three sub-points for internal and external conflict.

4. Once I’d written down all the plot points, I used them to write a synopsis. Now, I hate synopses as much as the next writer. Haaaaate them. I struggled with these suckers and it’s amazing how much agony went into writing them. But with my handy cards, drafting the synopsis was a snap. Better than a snap. Easy peasey. I’d already done the agonizing on the cards, but by breaking it out into plot points, I concentrated on the micro aspect of storytelling instead of the macro.

By the end of the weekend, I had a 12 page synopsis that flows from plot point to plot point, logically laid out. Sure, I’ll probably tinker with the storyline as I write, but for now I feel secure in the knowledge that the story is basically sound and that I’ve covered all the bases.

Do you have a method for drafting your stories out? How do you feel about synopses? Share with us in the comments.

Image by Hallow2.

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She has written two novels under the pseudonym Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter--both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President's teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins.
Kathleen Bolton
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