How to write the outline of a story that makes people fall in love at first sight

First, as writers, in addition to satisfying their hobbies, I think the ultimate goal of writing a novel is to publish and distribute it successfully, or to become a script resource for film and television companies. If you want to sell your novel to a publisher or film company, a good story outline is essential, because the company will not have so much time to read your novel completely in the screening process.

Second, a complete macro-structure of plot clues, character relations, contradictions and conflicts is arranged for the creation of the whole story, so that the creator can closely focus on his own main line in the creation, so that the writing will not grow out of the branches because of free play.

So what makes a good story outline?

First of all, if you are going to present your story outline to a culture company, I recommend having three versions.

The first version is a short version of about 300 ~ 600 words, which can be read by Party A within three minutes. It mainly highlights the theme, background, main line, character setting and highlights of the story. Let's take the 500-word outline of Nirvana in Fire as an example:

Mei Changsu was far away in the river's lake, but his name was on the emperor's chariot. River's lake rumor: "Jiang Zuo Mei Lang, kirin of the talent, can get the world." As the leader of one of the biggest "Jiang Zuo League" in the world, Mei Changsu "Mei Lang" reputation all over the world. However, the plum that has all corners of the country supreme position grows Su, it is an infirm youth however, frail, carrying 10 years ago huge injustice and blood feud, even background also is hiding huge secret.

The first paragraph highlights the character set, as the wisdom of the unparalleled river's lake help master is weak, at the same time carrying a blood grudge and shocking secrets. Such a set of paradoxical characters make the characters get rid of the perfect hero idol drama image, with its own character tension. Let's move on.

Twelve years ago, during the reign of Datong in the Southern Liang Dynasty, the Northern Wei Army marched southward. Lin Shu, a young commander of the Red Yan Army, went out with his father and led 70,000 soldiers to fight against the enemy. Unexpectedly, 70,000 soldiers were buried in Meiling because of the framings of crafty sydnees. Lin Shu picked up from the gate of hell back to the residual life, after the loss of relatives, chipped bone easy face pain, incarnated a big group of Jiang left alliance Lord Mei ChangSu.

The second paragraph explains the background of the story, including the historical dynasties, the main character's secret life.

Twelve years later, Mei Changsu returned to the imperial capital in a white dress under the pretext of convalescating illness. From then on, he set foot on the road of revenge, revenge and reclaiming the wife of concubine. In the face of the engagement of Princess Nihuang, his old friend Xiao Jingyan, and all the familiar things in the past, he can only endure everything in silence. Seemingly inadvertently, he raised the waves of blood with his weak body, helped King Jing of Ming Emperor to ascend the throne, and cleared the stigmata of seventy thousand Chiyan faithful souls.

The third paragraph makes clear the main line, theme and relationship between the characters. It is a story of intrigue and revenge in ancient costume. The ultimate goal of the characters is "revenge, revenge and revenge".

However, due to the confusion caused by Emperor Wu of Liang in his later years, there were chaos in the southern dynasty. The Eastern Wei, which had been established on behalf of the Northern Wei, took the opportunity to raise its troops and marched southward. In order to solve the national crisis, Mei Changsu, regardless of the physical weakness, decided to bundle armour, only three months, led the Daliang army in one stroke to calm the northern wolves and smoke, also Daliang to peace and stability. At this time, Mei Changsu also suffered to the end of their last little effort, in the battle field to go through their own life.

The fourth paragraph highlights the ending of the main line of the story, sublimates the idea of the story at the same time, lays the value orientation of the story, that is, the feelings of dying for the country.

It can be seen that the story outline of Nirvana in Fire is a short version with complete elements and proper details. The narrative order is worth studying.

The second version is a detailed version of about 2000 ~ 20,000 words, which can be read by Party A in 20 to 30 minutes. The outline of this version needs to briefly present the relationship between the main characters, the main line and branch line of the story, the climax and the ending, and the conflicts of each chapter. More importantly, highlight your own literary skills, life experience and logical structure in this edition.

My personal recommendation for this version of the outline is Campbell's "Hero's Journey" story. As for the validity of this model, we can look at one statistic. In 2008, the American Film Institute AFI released its list of the 100 greatest films of American cinema history. If we look at the 100 classic films as a sample, Campbell's "hero's journey" story model appears in more than 95 percent of the films. Therefore, the validity of this model can be said to have completely passed the test of practice. Moreover, although Kebel's model is summarized from the film script, the similarities between the script and the novel in the story outline make this model very suitable for the outline design of the general type of novel. In the following, I will take Jin Yong's "Legend of the Condor Heroes" as an example to illustrate the reference significance of this model for the creation of story outline.

The "hero's journey" theory consists of one journey, two worlds, and twelve components.

A journey is a journey to discover and live yourself. Two worlds: the ordinary world and the extraordinary world. The twelve components are: 1. The ordinary world 2. The Call of Adventure 3. Resist the call 4. See Tutor 5. Cross the first boundary 6. Test, partner, enemy 7. Close to a deep cave 8. The Ordeal of the core 9. Pay 10. Way back 11. The resurrection of 12. Return with a panacea.

Let's apply it to the "Legend of Condor Heroes" to have a look. Heroes in a normal world. In the novel, Guo Jing is born in a quiet village called Niu Jia. He had a call to adventure. One day in the novel, Jin soldiers arrive at the village, killing and looting Guo Jing's father, while her pregnant mother escapes into the desert. When Guo Jing was six years old, the seven monsters in the South of the Yangtze River became his teacher, and began to learn martial arts to revenge the road. He will hesitate at first or refuse or repel the call. In the novel, Guo Jing talent is dull and kung fu has not been improved. He will meet mentors who will inspire him. In the novel, Guo Jing came across Hong Qigong, the leader of the beggars' gang, who taught the martial arts. Beyond the first border, into the extraordinary world. In the novel, Guo Jing learns to fall the dragon 18 hands, and Huang Rong begins the adventure of fighting against the Jin soldiers and the villains of the river. Met with tests, partners and enemies. In the novel, Guo Jing deals with villains like Ouyang Feng on his way to adventure, and becomes a lover with Huang Rong. He fell to the bottom, approached the deepest cave, and crossed the second boundary. In the novel, five of Guo Jing's masters are killed by Ouyang Feng on Peach Blossom Island and are blamed on Huang Yaoshi. Guo Jing angrily leaves Huang Rong. Through tribulation. In the novel, painful Guo Jing dissolves sorrow with wine, fortunately Huang Rong tact ground saw through Ouyang Feng's plot, washed the grievances of Huang Yaoshi, got rid of the Yang Kang of evil many end. He received his reward (treasure, cure, method, etc.). In the novel, Guo Jing, after learning the truth, makes up with Huang Rong and defeats the Jin army many times under Genghis Khan's account. Chased by villains on their way back to the normal world. In the novel, Genghis Khan decided to attack the Song in the south after his successful western expedition, but Guo Jing, unwilling to attack the Song, decided to flee Mongolia, but was captured by Genghis Khan. He crosses the third boundary, experiences rebirth from the ashes, and is transformed by the experience. In the novel, Guo Jing is able to escape from Mongolia with the help of Zhebei and Torre. After suffering great changes, Guo Jing is dishearted, but he is encouraged and taught by Qiu Chuji. He returns with a treasure or with a panacea (be it real objects or love, freedom, faith, etc.) to benefit the normal world. At the end of the novel, Guo Jing participates in the second Huashan sword fight, and meets Huang Rong again, and finally becomes a Wulin chivalry couple.

Based on the above analysis, I believe that Campbell's story model has at least three advantages. First of all, his setting of contradictions and conflicts forms a three-act cycle, which makes the plot ups and downs and satisfies readers' psychological expectations of dramatic conflicts to the greatest extent. Secondly, this model firmly sets the relationship between the main characters in all aspects of the conflict, making the main characters very functional. Finally, due to the progressive relationship of the three acts, the main characters in this model have experienced several inner growth, so that the characters become full. Therefore, we can use Campbell's classic story model to modify or design our story outline against its narrative structure.

Let's talk about the third version of the outline. This version can build on the second version, adding more complete information related to the story outline. For example, add a biography of each of the main characters, showing the necessary information about the character, including: personal history and family history. Various external characteristics, such as age, sex, appearance, clothing style, etc. Personality traits, interests and hobbies. Outlook on life, love, values and other value orientation. Relationships with other characters. The dreams and fears of the characters and so on. The benefit of a character biography is that it allows you to have a more complete understanding of the inner changes and specific information of the character while writing, and reduces the occurrence of plot and character design inconsistency bug.

If you have a very complex persona, you can create a persona diagram that allows corporate reviewers to quickly grasp the relationships.

If your story is a story of an overhead world, you can add a map of that overhead world to give you a more tangible spatial cue as you write.

From a business standpoint, if you can do to your novel in the present market a positioning more will be the icing on the cake, such as compared to the classic novel of the same type on the market, means that you own the window of the novel have what differentiation and advantage, etc., or through the data to prove your novel theme may be welcomed by the market trend in the future.

Here are some tips to avoid when writing a story outline: 1. Focus on the main characters and don't spend too much time introducing the background of the secondary characters or the details of the secondary plot. 2. Highlight the core characteristics of each main character, such as sarcastic tongue, humor, courage, etc., and appropriately add some symbolic language to highlight the character image, such as "don't give up, don't give up" as a soldier, "there is only one truth" as a detective, etc. 3. Omit areas of knowledge that you are not familiar with, such as the economic and technological situation of a historical dynasty, etc.

In this lesson, we talked about the three versions of the story outline and summarized the issues to be aware of and avoid, hoping to help your story outline open doors.

This lesson's imagination question: Write a version of your story outline, or if you were to write a story outline for any of Jin Yong's Wuxia novels, how would you write it? Try to rewrite it.