Outlining, a Fractal Approach

Outlining is fractal, like a rocky coastline. The jagged water’s edge looks similar—not identical, just very like—if seen from space, an airplane, a tower, a rooftop, or from a crouching position at the water’s edge. Story sections also look similar at different planning elevations.

Outlining Sections

Whether it’s the 7-volume arc, the single novel, the act, or the scene, it’s the same from varied perspectives. Great stories include the set-up, hard choices and sacrifices, learning and transforming, transfers of power, darkest moments, and great rewards.

Outlining Time Savers

Because sections are similar in structure, we can save  drafting time by carrying outlining templates. These might be graphic organizers we’ve developed ourselves, or various outline styles we’ve learned from experts, or a combination of the two.

Outlining Math

“1,500 to 3,000 words a week drafted to your outline, gives you 70,000 to 140,000 words a year.” – The Writer’s Boon Companion

I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Note: map detail from Allaigna’s Song: Overture, by JM Landels.  Get this marvellous fantasy read from Pulp Literature Press, here.

You can’t escape magic when it’s in your blood …

When Allaigna was seven she almost sang her baby brother to sleep — forever.  She may not be heir to her mother’s titles and secrets, but she has inherited her grandmother’s dangerous talent for singing music into magic.  As her education proceeds from nursery to weapons ground to the rank of royal page, it becomes increasingly hard to keep her heritage and abilities hidden.

The original map was created by world-builder Scott Fitzgerald Gray and illustrated by Mel Anastasiou.

If you enjoy Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, you might try her pocket-sized writing guide The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume. Motivates, organizes, encourages, inspires.

From Pulp Literature Press