Writing the plot outline: One approach

H.G.Abby

Writing the plot outline: One approach

Write the goal you want to accomplish: Or rather, the goal you want your protagonist to reach by the end of the story. I do this by giving my protagonist a problem to solve. If you have more than one protagonist, say, heroine and hero, this could be that they want the same thing, or they want something opposite from what the other wants.

2cd: Write a quick list of incidents that occur in your story and where they happen. You know, the big things that stick out like a sore thumb. The exciting ones. But don’t allow yourself to get wrapped up in the details just yet, that will come later.

3rd: Now make another list about what might happen in-between the incidents. For every incident ‘scene’ ‘an engagement of action or dialogue’, you need a moment to reflect, to breath and lick wounds or laugh, and make a decision of what to do next. Remember, keep these lists brief. Wiggle room is like letting in the sunshine or moon glow—inspiration may strike.

4th: You’re ready to begin the rough draft.

268,308 thoughts on “Writing the plot outline: One approach”

  3. I do consider all the ideas you have offered in your post. They are very convincing and will definitely work.

    Nonetheless, the posts are very brief for beginners.
    May you please prolong them a bit from next time?

    Thank you for the post.

    Reply

  7. It is the stuff of nightmares: a lake is stained red with blood of slaughtered pigs which is
    attracting hundreds of man-eating crocodiles who prowl a nearby neighbourhood and family kill dogs.  

    Those who live along the shore next to the lagoon can do little but watch as
    the crocodiles snatch their treasured livestock and pets
    – and pray their children won’t be next.

    The Lake of Blood, as the locals call it, has attracted 300 deadly crocodiles since
    a nearby slaughterhouse began dumping pigs’ blood and offal into the water. 

    Polluted: Nicknamed ‘The Lake of Blood’ this lagoon is turned red by pigs’ blood and offal from
    pigs killed at a nearby slaughterhouse. It has
    attracted 300 man-eating crocodiles to the lake 

    Useful: The lake is also attracting poachers to the area who kill the crocodiles and sell them to exotic animal traffickers for
    £7 a centimetre – £500 per crocodile

    Nursery: The lake has become a magnet for five-metre long crocodiles who prowl
    the nearby neighbourhood and eat livestock and pets

    Terror: Lauren Villaney’s pet dog Pepper was killed last year.
    ‘There was nothing I could do, I just had to watch in horror through a hole in my wall,’ she told MailOnline

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    It is here in Chetumal, 200 miles south of Cancun on Mexico’s Caribbean Coast, the reptiles raise their young,
    which swim in the murky waters as the older, larger
    predators bathe in the Central American sunshine.

    It is at night that the residents fear the crocodiles the most.
    That’s when they pick off their chickens and, worse, pet dogs.

    And there is nothing anyone can do, should a crocodile come within striking distance of a dog.

    Dani Hernandez lives in constant fear for her children’s lives; malaria-ridden mosquitos swarm her slum shack night and day,
    which sits not 50 yards from the blood-filled lake.

    ‘I’m kept awake at night by the biggest males roaring and fighting just metres from my door,’ Ms Hernandez, mother to Gael, four,
    and Brian, seven months, told MailOnline. 

    ‘It’s terrifying, because there’s no way my tiny shack could stand up to
    a five metre monster if it wanted to come in.’

    Frightened: Dani Hernandez lives in fear of
    her children being caught by one of the crocodiles.

    ‘There’s no way my tiny shack could stand up to a five metre monster if it wanted to come in,’ she told MailOnline

    Stuck: The families who live near the lake, and the slaughterhouse, pictured, which is
    500 metres from the border with Belize, have no choice but stay there as they are too impoverished to move

    Nightmares: The crocodiles, which can be seen swimming in the festering water, hunt at night.
    This also attrats hunters who come to kill the crocodiles

    Insects: The water has also attracted thousands of disease carrying mosquitoes to the area

    Lauren Villaney’s pet dog Pepper was killed last year.

    ‘There was nothing I could do, I just had to watch in horror through a hole in my wall,
    ‘ she told MailOnline. 

    ‘Since that happened I’ve built a large fence around the shack, but that doesn’t stop them from prowling around
    the yard at all hours.’

    But another resident, fed up losing his loyal companions to the crocodile’s jaws, has
    taken a more proactive approach.

    The man, who declined to be named, said: ‘The last time they ate
    my dog I took a shotgun down to the lakeside and blasted the larger adults while they sat
    basking in the sun in the reeds.

    ‘You have to shoot a crocodile directly in the brain first time –
    otherwise they simply don’t die.

    ‘Even if you get a good shot in you can expect to be chased by the
    others. But eventually the others reptiles smell blood and cannibalise the
    dead crocodile.’

    But they are far from the only danger the community faces.

    Fear: Residents are frightened the crocodiles could eat their children next.
    Lauren added: ‘I’ve built a large fence around the shack, but that doesn’t stop them from prowling around the
    yard at all hours.’

    Business: As well as fears over the animals killing their pets and livestock, residents have to put up with hunters coming to the area

    Profit: It is a lucrative business as hunters catch the dangerous
    crocodiles, which are worth hundreds of pounds on the
    black market, prized for the leather their skin creates

    Trapped: Lauren says people ask why she lives so close to the crocodiles,
    but she says: ‘We simply do what we can when there’s no other option.
    A human being can get used to living alongside anything’

    In addition to the crocodiles, Lauren says that boa constrictor snakes, which are native to the Western Caribbean, often hunt both her and her animals.

    ‘The snakes are the most terrifying because they are enormous and have
    no fear,’ she told MailOnline. 

    MAYAN LEGEND: HOW THE CROCODILE LOST ITS
    TONGUE

    One of the oldest of the Mayan deities, the Crocodile god Sobek once had
    a tongue with which it spoke to the other animals and offered them counsel.

    One day Xolotl the Dog, the Mayan god of death and trickery, came to the crocodile and complained of its
    terrible thirst.

    ‘Dear crocodile’, said the dog, ‘I cannot drink water for I have no tongue in my mouth,
    and I will surely die of thirst if you do not
    help me.

    ‘Please lend me yours for a short while that
    I may satisfying my thirst’.

    The crocodile agreed, on the condition that the following day the two would meet in the midday shade of sacred Ceiba tree to return the crocodile’s tongue.

    The dog departed with a tongue in its mouth and
    overjoyed at the ability to drink freely from any lake or river, never arrived the next day to
    return it.

    Robbed of its tongue and left without speech, the crocodile
    was banished to the hellish swamps between the sea and the land, and to this day will attack any dog that comes close as revenge for the trick played upon it.

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    ‘If a crocodile sees a human it will generally move away, but
    a boa constrictor will just keep silently moving towards
    you.’

    Meanwhile, swarms of mosquitoes envelop any thin-skinned creature within a
    500-metre radius of the lake’s edge in a cloud of angry black specks, inflicting bites which last for weeks – threatening the local residents at every moment with dengue fever, malaria and zika virus.

    ‘My baby Brian has been made very sick by the constant mosquitoes,’ says Dani, pointing
    out the myriad insect bites across the little boy’s face and arms. 

    ‘Malaria is a terrible disease, and sooner or later we all get it living here.’

    ‘A lot of my friends ask me why I don’t move away, but it’s not that simple,’ Lauren admitted, holding one of her hens under her arm
    beside the rancid lake.

    ‘This is a slum, we simply arrive and build our houses without
    official permission. The only reason we have
    been left alone by the government is because no one else
    wants the land.

    ‘We simply do what we can when there’s no other option. A human being can get used to living alongside anything.’

    And there are other people who can see the profit in what the Lake of
    Blood has to offer.

    The crocodiles’ leather is worth £7 a centimetre once properly cured – £500
    per crocodile. 

    One Chetumal-based animal trafficker, El
    Cuerno, told MailOnline that the start of the mating season in February is the best time to poach live crocodiles from the lake.

    Infection: Dani’s baby Brian, pictured with his
    four-year-old brother Gael, is covered in bites from mosquitoes.
    ‘Sooner or later everyone gets malaria,’ Dani said

    Danger: ‘A lot of my friends ask me why I don’t move away, but it’s not that simple,
    ‘ Lauren admitted, holding one of her hens under her arm beside the rancid lake.

    Uninhabitable: ‘The only reason we have been left alone by the government is because no one else
    wants the land,’ she acknowledged. Pictured:
    A raided crocodile egg nest

    ‘The start of the mating season is when the male crocodiles are at their
    fattest and most powerful,’ he told MailOnline. ‘The ideal animal is around five years
    old and beginning to fight for territory.

    ‘A skin is worth less if it’s covered in scars and battle wounds so it’s important to get the animal when it is reaching
    adulthood, but before it has started battling for dominance.’

    The municipal slaughterhouse staff declined to
    comment on the environmental damage caused by their
    improper disposal of biological waste when approached by MailOnline.

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