Weiland uses illustrations from her own books and others’ to explain what makes plot compelling. By allowing yourself to write down every idea, no matter how crazy, you may come up with story-transforming gems. Some of your ideas will be ridiculous most will probably never make it into your book. For example:Īsk yourself every “what if” question that pops to mind regarding your story. She suggests exercises that help you brainstorm in specific ways. I decided to take it through the steps in Weiland’s book after the fact to figure out where the holes in the manuscript were.

It was missing something, but I couldn’t figure out what. Since NaNoWriMo of November 2014, I’ve been struggling to get my (hopefully) first publishable novel, The Unicornologist, into shape. In the past, I’ve used The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters by Christopher Vogler with its archtypes and twelve stages to outline my novels, but it’s only taken me so far. Without an outline, my characters just wander around aimlessly until they hit a dead end. I really need to plan out my story pretty much from beginning to end-not that I won’t follow any brilliant idea that comes to me spontaneously, but just so that my plot doesn’t die from the dreaded lack of destination. I am a person who gets into trouble when I try to write by the seat of my pants.

So it’s reasonable that I would buy her Outlining Your Novel Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises for Planning Your Best Book, the companion to her manual, Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success. Weiland’s blog, Helping Writers Become Authors, with its helpful articles on the craft of fiction.

Outlining Your Novel by K.M. Weiland