Young Writers Society

If you're like me, you have an AMAZING idea for your next story/novel, but thats about all you know about your story so far. The next step is to create an outline or plan of your idea and develop a storyline. But how do you start? By far the best way is to use the "flag card-scene" method employed by many professional writers. What is TheGirlNextDoor talking about, you may be wondering? Well I'm glad you asked...

The Flash Card-Scene Merhod
Start by brainstorming the major events/obstacles/points/etc. you want your story and characters to hit over the course of your story. These should be broad, one line synopses of events, little more than a basic plot line. The number of events you come up with will vary according to the length of your story. For novels, I would suggest at least 20. You don't have to plan out every detail quite yet, just have a general sense of where you want to go. Write each synopsis event out on a separate notecard and line up in chronological order across a table top, white board, etc.
Next is the scene part of this method. On a new stack of notecards, a different color than the broad idea cards, brainstorm out some details for each of the broad idea cards. Imagine each idea card is like a mini movie--what do you see happening? What scenes are playing out in your head? Again, keep each scene short and sweet. Your scenes don't have to be in order yet. Once you have what you feel is enough, play around with the order some. Does it make more sense for this to happen first or this? The beauty of the notecard method is that nothing is set in stone. You can move stuff around and experiment as you please.
After you've "scened out" every one of your broad idea cards, look over your story board and see if there are any awkward gaps and fill them in. If you are writing a novel, figure out where you want a chapter break to happen. This may be in the middle of a broad idea card and that's okay. Indicate the different chapters using a different colored notecard.
Copy down all your cards and scenes into a notebook then stack the cards in order. Then VOILA, you've done it. You've succesful created an in depth outline of your story. While you might not feel 100% ready to start crafting your masterpiece, you're now one step closer.

For more writing tips and an example of my story boarding process, follow me and check out my blog!

See, I'm familiar with that approach, and it doesn't work for me. I think it differs quite a bit for everybody. Personally, I spark the idea, come up with a working title, write the setting, then do profiles on all major characters. From there, I just fill a few pages jotting down things that I want to happen in the plot at some point. Once I feel confident, I start writing, and just put in the jotted ideas wherever I feel they fit. In other words, I never go past the "broad idea" phase. Interestingly, using this method, I outline more than anyone else in my local writing guild. Most of the others are either very opposed to outlining, or simply don't have the patience for it (too anxious to get straight to the writing).