by Kris Maze

You typed your last keystroke of your manuscript. The room hums with the last words on the page. Celebrate and cha-cha around your living room. It’s a milestone, whether you've done it once or one million times. Take a break and share with someone! 

Finishing your novel is also a single stage in getting your book into print. So, if you want to send the novel to an editor or publisher, you won’t want to skip this crucial task: taking an inventory of all the key events in the book.

There are many benefits we can get from sifting through our masterpiece. (Yes, it is a beautiful work of art, but even great artworks start with sketches, and improve with reworking and practice.)

Does this sound like a tedious additional step? Perhaps, but it is a worthy one that can save you some rejections and fix editing problems we all experience while crafting our novels.

Writing style matters

As a plotter or pantser - listing key events in your novel may look different depending on your writing style. But for both, going chapter by chapter may be useful for many reasons.

1. You can examine your work structurally and before sending your work to an editor fix expensive issues.
2. You can form a query synopsis easier and be more flexible to various agent/publisher requests.
3. You can create marketing materials and promotional items easier with a handy outline of your novel.
4. You will have a better elevator pitch and book blurb, because you will have worked out the deep essence of your story.

Your writing style may change when you create an outline of key events:

• Pantsers may spend more time after the novel to check their work.
• Plotters will see how their work deviates from their original outline/notes and have a clean copy of the actual manuscript as written.

Inspecting your whole novel gives writers a bird-eye view of their book. It takes patience, but the process can save us valuable time in the future.

What do I do? Lemme tell you…

1. The first step is simplistic, but it takes the most time. First, create a list of Key Events for each chapter of your novel.

(I use OneNote to keep this organized, but there are several other ways that work as well. At the end of the post, I have organization methods that many writers use.)

2. Once you have melded down your solid gold words, then take this trimmed down version of your book to examine its structure.

3. Think of the following ways to use your list of key events below.

1. Toggle through the key points.

In the editing phase, I scan through my chapters and summarize key points on separate pages. One note makes this a neat, easy to toggle experience. My current novel has a literal timer throughout the whole story and is one aspect that I have to get right. How much time has passed is critical to the story has to make sense to keep the action moving. I can now figure this out much quicker than other methods.

What has helped me tremendously is that I can quickly flip through the chapters in OneNote and easily see the bullet points for events. and see if the times line up sequentially and align with how much time should have passed.

Want more information on this software? See here for a fantastic post on the features of OneNote, by Jenny Hansen.

2. Fix plot holes. 

Maybe your timeline works, but in my book, I noticed some chapter events were thin while others were bulky with bullet points. I asked myself a few questions and smoothed out my novel in the process:

• Where do I have long chapters and how can I break them up into more manageable reading chunks? 
• Do the characters need to do all the action scenes I have? Can some be cut or moved from overloaded chapters?
• Does the order of the actions make sense? For example, would someone clean off their shoes and then go outside to the barn? Or the other way around?
• Do the actions fit the character’s personality? And do they show growth throughout the novel?
• Do the actions match the setting? Could another setting improve the flow of the novel or intensify the action or plot?

3. Spread out the action. 

Watch out for conversation parties.

In my WIP, the main characters have been forced to live underground while trying to communicate with other survivors after an asteroid hit their city. There are plenty of tense events as their world threatens to collapse from above, but they also are developing a friendship. 

While scanning through my events, I noticed some chapters were filled to the tippy-top with conversation. Using up all their air in the bunker with words. Conversation while cooking, conversation while learning how to tend to underground crops. Conversation about past conversations all to fill in the backstory. Some of it had to go away.

Even out your action and downtime scenes.

I realized that I added those details after an intense string of action scenes, but just too much. I needed to pull it out, break it up, and find places to add the quiet daily doldrums back into my story to balance out the action scenes. The effect is a smoother read.

4. Is there enough action? 

Maybe you find chapters that don't have many events. Think about a tricky spot in your novel and try to rework it with new action.

1. Look at this scene. Drinking coffee or tea or water. We all do it. But why do we want to read about it?
2. Can your characters witness an accident outside their window?
3. Does your MC fall or drop their fully prepared anniversary dish across the kitchen floor?      Does the cute waiter slip a note on a napkin to his secret crush? 

Make the most of the daily events and consider your plot.

• Can you add activity? If a scene is a reveal of a secret over coffee, perhaps your characters can spill the news while horseback riding on the beach or hunting down the missing bad guy.
• Add an interesting action. The more unexpected, but plausible, the more the reader will continue out of curiosity. 

Adding more action to an introspective scene can propel the reader on and you lessen the risk of them abandoning the book during a slow spot.

5. Is there enough internalization?

 Look at your key points. Include these internal revelations for each chapter as well. The character's growth arc should be apparent while scanning through these events. Consider the following questions and examples.

• Did you write the a-ha moments your characters have? How many?
• When do they realize they have feelings for someone or when they discover they would rather be a florist than a lawyer? Is this at a pivotal point in the story?
• Do the flow in a logical order?
• Does the character have a satisfying solution to their initial struggle? 
• Do they have enough growth to wow the reader? 
• Do you get feelings from their growth? Will your readers? If you can evoke these feelings in your reader, they will connect with your MC and want more of your story.

6. Do you have a sense of setting in each chapter?

            Make a clear connection

Be certain your events have a clear connection to place and that is evident on the page. They may force your MC into stealing the magical brooch, and even though the reader may remember from the last chapter, it is a nice courtesy to add details that help them remember it. Readers want a clear, seamless, enjoyable read. This is one way to help that happen.

 But How?

Add pieces of furniture. She searched the queen's floral etched vanity, sure she wasn't noticed by the guards. She handed chunks of bacon to the queen's hounds sitting patiently outside.

Add other characters. The guards, her dogs, in the previous example.

Add time of day and weather. The sun lit the area, spraying low angled golden streams over her royal bed and Persian rug. She noticed the queen hardly touched her soft boiled egg, but preferred her half eaten toast and jam. It is morning; it is not raining. 

Help your readers build your set with details about time and weather. Remember to show them where they are in each chapter so they will focus more on your story and characters.

OneNote

Using OneNote, Microsoft's organizing software is my new spring love. I just tried this organizing tool, after realizing it’s part of the Microsoft tools I already have. It made sense to use it since it also adds value to paying for their tools yearly. 

Don’t want to use OneNote or comparable software? Try other ways to organize your novel’s key events.

How do can you do this with other programs? Or in other methods?

• Other ways I have used were building these pieces into one lengthy document (Word, Google, OpenOffice). 
• I you are old school and love the paper experience. I still use binders, a 3 hole punch, and my trusty home printer that I bought years ago for less than one refill of ink.
• Sticky notes, or paper and tape, on any blank wall. Just remember that this one isn't portable, or searchable, or has the multitude of features that free you up to focus on your creativity. I'm not the only fan of OneNote - see Jenny Hanson's post above on how OneNote's top features can work for you.

Have you picked up a tip that could be helpful? Which of these have you used the most? Tell us your go-to organizing tool for the editing process. I’d love to hear them.

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author and teacher. She has worked in education for many years and writes for various publications, including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and the award-winning blog Writers in the Stormwhere she is also a host. You can find her YA sci-fi and horror stories and keep up with her author events at her website which is currently getting some new fun features!

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors with her family.

By Ellen Buikema

When I began this series on sensory writing, I hadn’t planned to include the power of vision in writing. Everyone uses the sense of sight, right?

People are unique in that most use sight as their dominant sense, which may be why the sense of sight is so often used in describing scenes and characters.

When using sight in writing, our characters are often guided by what they see.

Color

“As we emerged into the capital of Winter, the corridors changed from what looked more or less like smooth, poured concrete to crystalline ice in every hue of glacial blue and green, the bands of color merging, intertwining. Flickers of light danced through the depths of the ice like lazy fireflies of violet and crimson and cold blue sky. My eyes wanted to follow the lights, but I didn’t let them. I couldn’t tell you why, but my instincts told me that would be dangerous, and I listened to them.” –  Jim Butcher, Cold Days

Color is a great tool to use for sight. It adds life, richness, and contributes to mood, in this case—fear. Winter’s world in the Butcher’s Dresden series is full of treachery and deceit. A cold and violent place. The cool colors add to the tension.

Movement

“On the periphery of his vision he sensed fresh movement. Two more terrorists had entered the room, their guns blazing. He rolled again, still firing, and saw them both fall. He came to a stop on one knee, poised and ready to spring in any direction. … The senator cowered away in the opposite direction, terrified of any movement near him. His lips quivered and he was whimpering like a child.” – David Ambrose, The Discrete Charm of Charlie Monk

The way that characters move through a scene illuminates their qualities and emotions. In this case, the protagonist is open and full of energy (no doubt, adrenalin), whereas the protectee has pulled himself inward.

Light

“The blazing sun, the cessation of the short-lived breeze, and the return of perfect silence to the cemetery made her uneasy. The sun seemed to pass through her as if she were transparent, and she was strangely light, almost weightless, and mildly dizzy too. She felt as if she were in a dream, floating above an unreal landscape.” – Dean R. Koontz, Lightning

Light affects mood, both inside and outdoors.

Perhaps you have a character originally from a sunnier location that moves to the Pacific Northwest, maybe the Oregon coast. How do you think the change of light might affect the character’s frame of mind? Sad? Depressed? Elated? Murderous?

Here’s a great list of weather descriptions to use.

Visual Writing Prompt #1

Find an interesting photo.

• Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the scene.
• First focus on individual parts, and then in your mind, step back and see the whole scene.
• Is it familiar?
• How does it make you feel?
• What would your characters do in this environment?
• Try adding this or similar sensory information in your WIP.

Try using the top image as a writing prompt and see where your imagination takes you.

Visual Writing Prompt #2

• Stand in the middle of your room.
• Look all around.
• Make notes on the details
  • Dust bunnies
  • Crumbs
  • Clothes draped on the floor, furniture, or hamper
  • Textures of bedding, lamp, lampshade
  • Books, glasses, empty plates

Can any of these elements fit into your story?

Writing the Sense of Sight in Different Genres

Sight in Romance

“Sam handed me my hot chocolate and didn’t answer. But his yellow eyes gazed at me possessively—I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be.
I crouched to look at the almond bark on the bottom shelf in the counter. I wasn’t quite bold enough to look at either of them when I admitted, ‘Well, it was love at first sight.’” – Maggie  Stiefvater, Shiver

Sight in Humor

“It's not because I want to make out with her."
Hold on." He grabbed a pencil and scrawled excitedly at the paper as if he'd just made a mathematical breakthrough and then looked back up at me. "I just did some calculations, and I've been able to determine that you're full of shit.”  – John Green, Looking for Alaska

Sight in Mystery/Thriller

“I watched her undress with moonlight shivering across the room from behind sheer curtains that moved with the currents from the hearth fire.” – Gabriel F.W. Koch, Death Leaves a Shadow

“Robin was a great kid. Smarter than her father at eight years old. She liked the oddest things. Like the instructions for a toy more than the toy itself. The credits of a movie instead of the movie. The way something was written. An expression on my face. Once she told me I looked like the sun to her, because of my hair. I asked her if I shined like the sun, and she told me, ‘No, Daddy, you shine more like the moon, when it’s dark outside.” ― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

Using sensory details helps your readers immerse themselves in the story and experience the characters’ feelings.

How do you use the sense of sight in your writing? Do you have any examples of writing using sight you’d like to share?

* * * * *

About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents and a series of chapter books for children with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works In Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and Crystal Memories, YA paranormal fantasy.

Find her at https://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Whether you’ve just finished a project or you’ve just started writing, facing the blank screen (page) is daunting. It can make even the best ideas shrivel in your head and freeze your fingers. Some believe that story structure is essential for success and advise all writers must plan their story in advance. Others believe spontaneity is crucial to creativity and advise that everyone should pants their story. What is a writer, especially a new writer, to do? Consider that both are correct. Story structure is important and spontaneity can be a boon to creativity. Neither are the only right answer. There are tools that can help all writers regardless of their preferred story development method. One plotting tool for all is the story sentence.

Where Do You Start?

You stare at the screen and think that the great idea you had is really a cliché, or it’s too slight to be the epic novel you envisioned, or that the idea is only a two-step plot. Hold on. It’s not that bad. All you need is one sentence. But before we begin that, we need a common understanding of what plot means.

What is Plot?

To paraphrase and meld together definitions by Dwight V. Swain, Donald Maass, and Jessica Page Morrell: 

Plot is a series of scenes where something changes. Each change builds intensity and tension and increases your reader’s sense of foreboding until there is a devastating fear that your focal character may not attain her goal. When the intensity reaches its maximum, there is a release of tension in a satisfying manner. 

It’s a mouthful, but all of those things are part of the word plot represents. What changes, how things change, how intense or tension-filled your story is comes from the situation, genre, and tropes you select to build your plot. Overwhelmed yet? There are a lot of pieces to plot and it can be overwhelming. So let’s pare it down to a bite-sized chunk—the story sentence.

What is The Story Sentence?

It is not a tagline. A tagline is a tease. That’s not what we want right now.

The sentence is closer to a log line. But it’s not that either. It isn’t for marketing. It isn’t for your readers to understand. 

It’s a plotting tool, a sentence meant to help you focus your story. Maybe you’re like I was. You’ve heard writers are supposed to boil their story down to one sentence but you can’t figure out how to do it.

I did not get it until I took Holly Lisle’s “How to Revise A Novel” course. Simply put, she advised that the sentence included a protagonist, an antagonist, a conflict, and a hook. She recommended the sentence should be no more than thirty words in length. With her more detailed class instructions, I finally understood. Since then, I’ve studied how others use the story sentence and eventually made it my own. 

The Parts of the Sentence

I break down the sentence into parts--

An [adjective] [focal character] needs [to do something] for [an important personal reason] but [an adjective] [obstacle] needs [something] which [verb of conflict or stakes].

This is both easier and harder than it looks. Those of you who are grammar nerds may find my next statement objectionable. Don’t worry about grammar when you construct the story sentence. This isn’t about making a well-constructed sentence. It’s about getting the essence of your story down.

Let’s look at the parts of that sentence more closely.

The Character

The first noun, the character, is usually your protagonist, primary, or focal character. A name at this point doesn’t help you. Instead of a name, identify your character by her predominate character trait, job or vocation, or role in the story. This is a place where clichés are okay, but if you can be more specific and unusual, that’s better. The adjective you choose to enhance your character should describe a small part of what makes your character unusual. 

Let’s say we have an army doctor. Now we give the army doctor a descriptive adjective. He’s a wounded army doctor. Great. Moving along.

The Need

What does our army doctor need? Hmm, we’ll say he’s returning to civilian life. Okay. That’s pretty ordinary. Let’s make that more specific. He’s searching for a flat in London. Better. Maybe he’s discovered that returning to civilian life isn’t easy. How can we reduce that to convey stronger feelings? 

He’s unfulfilled by civilian life. Okay. That implies he needs to be fulfilled somehow. We keep working on this until we have a better idea of what his need is. Maybe he needs to overcome PTSD. Wait, you say. That’s not terribly original. Remember, the sentence is to help you focus your story, not necessarily to show all the lovely details that make your story unique. 

The Sentence So Far

A wounded army doctor unfulfilled by civilian life must overcome his PTSD…

To Do What?

All right, now we need to figure out what motivates him (at least in a broad sense) to overcome his PTSD. This may be where another character comes in. Don’t name the character, give him a descriptive adjective and noun. So our wounded army doctor has an eccentric flatmate. Maybe his eccentric flatmate has gotten into some kind of trouble and only the doctor can save his flatmate. 

The Updated Sentence 

A wounded army doctor unfulfilled by civilian life must overcome his PTSD to save his eccentric flatmate…

The Obstacle

The obstacle is a person, place, or thing that may cause the focal character to fail. The weather, the geography, internal flaws, or even a culture can be an obstacle. Often the obstacle is the antagonist and actively keeps your focal character from attaining her goal. In the wounded army doctor story, who or what is the obstacle? 

When searching for the obstacle, ask yourself questions. Why can’t the army doctor swoop in and save his flatmate? Why would the flatmate need his life saved? Perhaps the eccentric flatmate is a brilliant private detective. What if that detective’s nemesis is a criminal genius? What if the criminal genius has sprung a trap, endangering the life of the detective? What if the doctor is the only one who knows about the trap?

The Full Sentence

A wounded army doctor unfulfilled by civilian life must overcome his PTSD to unravel clues left by a criminal genius to save his eccentric flatmate’s life and find fulfillment as a detective. 

Did you guess this thirty-two word sentence is about Sherlock, the British television series? Is it a well-written sentence? No. Does it focus the story’s plot? Yes. It actually shifts the focus away from the Sherlock as the focal character and makes it more about Doctor Watson. That’s good news if our idea was to have Dr. Watson be the protagonist. If we didn’t mean to make the story about Dr. Watson, we can try again. 

Not Written in Stone

The sentence is a tool. It is not static or unchangeable. If you change your mind at any stage of the writing process, you can pause and rewrite the sentence. Change the protagonist or obstacle or the whole thing. Or you can carry on writing your new story to the end. Rewrite the sentence before you revise your story. It will help you through the revision process.

Must you use a story sentence? Nope. You can outline or pants all the way through a story. Depending on your understanding and internalization of how to write a story, pantsing may mean you have a lot of revision to do. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you are a clean writer, you may need only minor revisions. It’s a matter of what you, as a writer, need to do in order to be your most efficient and effective storytelling self.

Is it really One Plotting Tool for All?

As a semi-reformed pantser, I love the story sentence. It helps me keep the story focused without telling a thing about the specific path the story will take. Is the sentence for you? Only you can decide that.

Some writers start with little more than a glimmer of an idea. Others use copious notes and detailed outlines before they write a word. There are writers who write the end first and writers who write random scenes that they can somehow knit together later in a different order. Choose the tools and methods and steps that make sense to you. The how you write should be unique to you. Whether you rely on spontaneity or use detailed outlines, or even use the premise method, a tool like the sentence will help you start but will vanish out of sight as soon as you get your process ignited.

Moving On from The Sentence

Once you know your sentence, you can move on to the next phase of story development. For me, that’s developing my general story arc based on that sentence. But that’s for next month’s post.

Have you used The Sentence to guide your writing?

About Lynette

Lynette M. Burrows loves hot coffee, reading physical books, and the crack of a 9mm pistol—not all at the same time, though they all appear in her books. She writes action-filled science fiction with characters who discover their inner strength and determination and make courageous choices for themselves, their family, and their world.

In Book One of the Fellowship Dystopia, My Soul to Keep, Miranda discovers dark family secrets, the brutality of the Fellowship, and the deadly reality of rebellion. Book two, If I Should Die, continues Miranda’s story with heart-wrenching choices and page-turning action. If I Should Die will be published in May 2022. 

She  has had several children’s short stories published in regional and national magazines and co-authored The White Box series of novellas with Rob Chilson. Although collaborating with Mr. Chilson ruined her short story skills, she occasionally publishes flash fiction on her blog.

Owned by two Yorkshire Terriers, Lynette lives in the land of Oz. When she’s not procrastinating by doing housework or playing with her dogs, she’s blogging or writing or researching her next book. You can find Lynette online at https://lynettemburrows.com, Facebook.com/LynetteMBurrowsAuthor, or on Twitter @LynetteMBurrows.

Image Credits

Top image by by Markus Winkler from Pixabay 

Last image by Nile from Pixabay