Plotting a Story (for Writers who HATE Plotting)

A pantser's guide to plotting! Are you a writer who HATES plotting of any kind? But you know your stories could benefit from a bit of outlining? You're 100% right – outlining your story before you write it will not only strengthen your characters, plot, and themes… it will help you tremendously during the editing process. But plotting can be really overwhelming — especially if you’re used to flying by the seat of your pants. That's why, in today's video, I’m going to show you how to create a minimal and non-intimidating outline that will guide your story to greatness.

BULLET POINT OUTLINE STORY STRUCTURE:
• The Hook:
• Set-Up:
• Inciting Incident:
• Build-Up:
• 1st Plot Point:
• 1st Pinch Point:
• Pre-midpoint reactionary hero:
• Midpoint:
• Post-midpoint action hero:
• 2nd Pinch Point:
• Supposed victory:
• Disaster:
• Dark moment:
• Aha moment:
• Climactic Confrontation:
• Resolution/end:

✨T I M E S T A M P S✨
0:00 Do you hate plotting?
1:31 The truth about outlining
4:36 Step #1: Premise
5:21 Step #2: Protagonist
6:38 Step #3: Story Structure
9:00 Example: Jane Eyre
11:30 Now it’s your turn!

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✨ V A L U A B L E R E S O U R C E S✨

MORE VIDEOS YOU WOULD LIKE:

→ HOW TO FIND YOUR MC'S FATAL FLAW

→ WHY YOUR FIRST CHAPTER SUCKS

→ HOW TO WRITE GOOD DESCRIPTIONS

→ 10 WEAK WORDS TO CUT FROM YOUR NOVEL

✨F O L L O W ✨

✨ A B O U T ✨
My name is Abbie Emmons I teach writers how to make their stories matter by harnessing the power and psychology of storytelling, transforming their ideas into a masterpiece, and creating a lifestyle that makes their author dreams come true.

Story isn’t about “what happens” — it’s about how what happens affects and transforms the characters. I believe that there is an exact science (a recipe, if you will) behind a perfect story. And if you know what ingredients you need, you can create your own perfect story with ease and confidence. That’s what we talk about every week on this channel – and if it’s something you’re into, be sure to subscribe and join this community!

[renelznicolas]

Random fact you didn't ask for: in Spanish, a pantser is called a "compass writer" and an outliner would be a "map writer" :)

[BetweenSunAndMoon]

My problem is that knowing every plot point beforehand makes me not want to write the story anymore, because I already know exactly what's going to happen and what my characters will do. Where's the fun in that? I've had multiple stories I was passionate about that I immediately lost interest in after I outlined them. That's why pantsing is also called discovery writing: because you get to discover your story and characters as you write them.

[bunothebrains]

You should write a story where the protagonists misbelief is that plotting is bad and his/her fear that is preventing him or her from achieving their goal (which is plotting) is that plotting will take away their creativity and so the protagonist will make choices after their misbelief of plotting. Would be a banger, a bestseller, everyone would buy it :D

[CCKTAVIAN]

Not me trying to write a book at the age of 11, when I can't go 4 minutes without my brain transporting me to Hogwarts.

[Kiki-csxv]

And they all lived happily ever after!...

Except for Mrs. Rochester, who's conveniently dead.

[meilynwoods]

I used to be a pantser but now I'm in the middle. I need to know where I'm going but I like the freedom of just writing.

[dimwitteddingo]

I come up with stories in my head during math class then go to quickly plot them down but by the time I get home I've forgotten half of it

[joemoya]

The advantage of pantsing is that the book never reads like the writer already knows the ending. Pansers don't lead the reader. Instead, the writer and the reader follow the story no matter where it goes. After the story is finished, then you go back and organize the misteps and easily disregard the parts that don't add to the ending, middle or beginning.

[mergesviz]

What rubs me the wrong way is that “plotting always helps”. It doesn’t. Sometimes plotting isn’t the answer, it’s brainstorming. Even the very bare bones of what Abby recommended is too much at times.

The way my brain works is that I have landmark scenes, or, scenes that I know are important emotional beats for me to work towards. Sometimes I completely disregard those ideas. I get my best brainstorming/planning done while I’m writing. So I find out that X shouldn’t happen here but Y because I wrote Z. I can’t get that foresight from outlining.

When I try to outline a book, I simply don’t know enough about the characters or story, so it never applies while drafting. I have tried to outline so many times and I ALWAYS disregard it because it doesn’t represent the story or characters because I didn’t know what or who they were while outlining!

What helps is understanding emotional beats, story structure, arcs, all of that fundamental craft stuff and understanding it so well that it rests in the back of my brain while drafting. I’m hardly close to being an expert or knowing a lot about writing, but understanding the core of storytelling is so much more important than outlining.

Don’t outline for the sake of outlining.

[oginpat]

Well, problem with being a pantser - you get bored while plotting easily and lost the excitment. I also can´t say how my character will behave without knowing how they would react in situations that appears in the book. Basicaly I need to write the book before actually writing it! xD

[Spark_is_right_here]

I usually don’t plot short stories but I’m working on a fan fiction that is becoming bigger than I’d thought. It started as a “I haven’t written for months and need to write SOMETHING” and turned into “Holy geez this is actually getting a bit serious”. So...outline time!

[victoriasmith]

Definitely a pantser but I realize I never finish books. So I will be an outliner now...thank you.

[kennedypatton]

Hi Abbie, Can you make a video on debunking villain myths? With topics like:
- Is it okay to romanticize the villain?
- Is it possible to do a plot twist villain? (Even when using vicarious suspense)
-How do you balance the good attributes of the villain with the bad ones?
I hope this isn’t too demanding. Keep up the work. And Rock on!

[klaraleavesley]

Abbie, do you fly by the seat of your pants?
Me: Nervous Laughter
My Character: I HAVE TOO MANY
My main character wen through like four thousand different misbeliefs in one book before I finally anchored her in one. LOL, I need help! Usually, my planning just looks like a lot of scribbles on my notebook that I thought would be cool and now have to shove them in somewhere in the story.

[shanthi]

My problem with plotting is once I'm done the basic outline portion I get to writing the first draft. Later on I feel like there is a lot I want to change but to do that I'll have to also change major details. It just makes the whole process messy.

[BirdsAndWhales]

My problem isn't so much that I dislike plotting/outlining, it's that I'm bad at it. I can only seem to have plot ideas when I'm actually writing, because at that point things just seem to flow out of my head magically, or if I'm lucky enough for them to just "come to me" at some point out of the blue. I desperately need some advice on how to actually generate a plot, because I just can't seem to do it. I have no problems with premise, characters, world-building, etc, just can't seem to come up with what is going to happen.

[mianguyen]

i don't make outlines, i just write a lot a lot a of comments on my story as i go so i can jot down ideas and not get insanely bored with the material of my story...

[robbieabel]

I'm WAY late to this conversation, but:

I was a pantser meandering my way to finding the story. Then I decided to write a novel as my thesis for grad school, and all of a sudden, I had a deadline.

Plotting (+ Save the Cat: Writes the Novel) saved my bacon. Though, I wish I'd known about this channel at the time.

[stephenlogsdon]

I do what I call a trailing outline, because basically most of what you’re saying is already in my mental outline for the project. Basically it’s a list of characters and their attributes so as to not get confused as I continue to write the story. I should be better at it, filling in more detail, but it works. Thats my pantser story. Oh … I also create a document for each character POV, and don’t write from beginning to end, all with the mindset that they will be intertwined later.

[NinjaPenguin]

I'm usually an outliner but when I get hit with creativity, outlineing kinda kills that mood so this is perfect