Plotting Through Backstory (Review So Far - Post #5)

Four full posts into my plotting through backstory series, it’s the perfect time to review what we’ve done so far.

Outlining (or plotting) is not something to be done chronologically.

I sometimes suspect this is why so many authors insist plotting doesn’t help. I’ve tried to outline this way, and it really is largely unhelpful. Outlining this way basically meant I was focusing only on that list of chapters. That’s where I started and ended. So I was telling myself what I thought the story would be, first chapter to last. These outlines always focused on what would happen, rather than why. They would do nothing to help me sketch out character or motivation. So, naturally, when I sat down to write the chapters I had outlined, I was having to figure out my characters from scratch—and that also inevitably led to me changing my mind completely about the overall plot.

Which meant that about a third of the way in, I was tossing my outline and pantsing for the rest of the book.

For me, pantsing was always a recipe for rewriting a book 4.3 billion times.

I hated that process. And that was why I began to suspect I wasn’t outlining properly. And why I began to really dig deep into outlining methods.

Outlining is all about taking a large, vague idea and bringing it into focus, then breaking the idea into smaller and smaller chunks (eventually ending with a list of scenes or chapters).

I had to put the above statement into large bold letters because it is the key to everything. Seriously.

I mean, you will, obviously, wind up with that chronological list of chapters. But you don’t start there. First, you understand the overall arc of the book. Then you break it into increasingly smaller slices.

So outlining, when done in a way that’s helped me, is all about starting with the big picture.

That’s what we’ve done so far:

Because this series is specifically about plotting through backstory, we started with everything that happened before our novel even opened.

We discussed what backstory is (something formative that happened to your main character at some point in the past).

We discussed how this story is continuing to impact our main characters. As K.M. Weiland frequently discusses on her site and in her own plotting books, this backstory led the main character to forming a kind of self-protective lie. To illustrate how this often works, I referenced An Officer and a Gentleman and discussed how the protagonist (Zack Mayo) decided, following his mother’s suicide, never to let anyone close to him again. His love affair with Paula, the Debra Winger character, forces him to address this lie head-on.

We discussed the purpose of story—how novels find our main characters at make-or-break moments. Something is physically happening to our character that is high-stakes…and navigating this issue is going to force that character to address the lie they have created.

We also discussed how this character change (or arc) is also going to be where your overall theme will reside. What the main character learns (in broad terms, something like love conquers all—only, yours won’t be so generic) will wind up being the overall theme of your work. Knowing that before drafting means that the theme will be integral to your book and not just tacked on with some sort of glowing generality at the end.

You can see how backstory informs our overall idea of what our book will be about.

What to do with all this information:

If you prefer character-driven work, this is right up your alley. Here, you can start with a character. Develop them—figure out what happened in their past, and what their lie is. Figure out what can physically happen to them—something high-stakes—that makes them address the lie head-on. Write down what you think your theme will be as a result.

Or, if you prefer action-oriented work, start with the high-stakes event (rather than the character.) Then write the why. Do not neglect backstory. Figure out what happened to your main character—and their lie—and how the event you already know you want to depict will force that character to address their past.

Figuring this out means you’ll be able to see your book’s overall purpose with greater clarity. Then you’ll be able to break the events down into smaller chunks.

We’ll begin breaking down into chunks next week, starting with the hook.

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I will be releasing the entire series on plotting through backstory for all subscribers—including free subscribers. But I do hope you’ll consider supporting my work by becoming a paid subscriber—just $15 a year. Regardless of how you subscribe, I’m so glad you’re here. Thanks for reading.