Fic outlines, and somehow this turned into story shapes
If you write fanfiction or original fic, do you make outlines? Why or why not? Do you always do it? What do they look like? How are they organized? How extensive are they? What info does your outline give you? What doesn't it give you? Do you like doing it, or does it feel like a lot of work? Are you willing to post one of your outlines, and will you drop a link? Tell me about this part of your process!
Here are those questions for easy answerability. If you post answers in your journal, could you drop me a link? So we can get discussy, if you like. Or you can answer in comments. You don't have to answer them all! Pick and choose.
For answering with ease!
If you write things, do you make outlines?
Why or why not?
Do you always do it?
What do they look like?
How are they organized?
How extensive are they?
What info does your outline give you?
What doesn't it give you?
Do you like doing it, or does it feel like a lot of work?
Link to an outline of one of your stories (oh! A link to the final story would be cool too)?
Okay, here I'll discuss it a little. Okay or a lot. Knowing me.
I don't usually write outlines. You know how you keep reading a book because you want to see how it ends? Well, usually that's why I keep writing. It's not that I have no idea how something I'm writing ends. When you read The Hunger Games, you pretty much know what's going to happen. But you want to see how it happens, and usually once I can "see" the ending, I'm no longer interested. So I try not to look at it too hard.
This isn't the case for the more abstract, experimental things I write. Examples of those are (in HP) Oroboros, 5 Ways Draco Malfoy Tops, (in BtVS) Five Ways NFA Didn't End, Bodiless Within The Bodies, (in SPN) Let's Get Biblical. I just made a tag for abstract, non-linear prose.
For those, I usually write a little list. I usually erase them as I write each part of the list, so not many survive. But just for instance, the list for Blood Types (Buffyverse) would have been as simple as:
-Darla
-Drusilla
-Gypsy girl
-Rats
-Buffy
-Kate
-Wesley
When you look at the fic, each of those names is a big bold heading, and following each heading is a little description of what their blood tasted like to Angel. The whole point, obviously, is it's a list.
It gets a little less obvious and coherent for a fic like Silver Tongues. This is a Harry/Draco fic about Harry still being a Parselmouth after he kills Voldemort. Basically, Harry is corrupted by power/being possessed/having been possessed/having had to kill, which results in harmful dominant tendencies. Meanwhile, Draco is corrupted by fear/having been manipulated and controlled/etc, which results in harmful submissive tendencies. This is what I found in an old document; I really have no idea what it means:
1. Temptation
Harry - to seduce
Draco - Eden
2. Possession
Harry - well, duh
Draco - (Bella)Ginny
3. Suicide
Harry - immortality (Neville’s sword)
Draco - Cleopatra
4. Sex?
Harry - well, duh
Draco - succor? solace
But if you look at the fic, the first two parts are about temptation--first, Harry's temptation to seduce--a la, the temptation to become the tempter in the garden. Second, Draco's temptation for knowledge--Eve, in the garden of Eden (baby).
The next two parts are about possession. Harry has obviously been possessed by Voldemort (that's why it says, "well, duh"--it basically happens canonically). The "Ginny" part next to "Draco" after "2." has been moved up to parallel Harry. Ginny was also possessed by Voldemort (and who is a stand in for Hogwarts, which was invaded [possessed] by a basilisk). Draco is possessed because he's controlled by his fear of Voldemort, and it's driving him mad--which is also what happened to Bella.
So, really, this fic should have been 8 parts. Each number represents a theme, which I explored for Harry, then Draco. I remember now--I had actually only wanted to write 4 parts; each part would explore the theme for Harry and Draco both. But everything kept getting longer because I was trying this weird thing where the last word of every sentence was also the first word of the next sentence. This meant I was writing needless things, filling up space just for the sake of the pattern (the idea was oroboros, a snake eating its tail).
It made it so I lost the thread, and ended up sort of merging the last two themes, which is why there were six sections total. But basically, that's a whole lot of thought and planning and patterns, but the above is the only outline I wrote. The "planning" document does have a lot references about snakes, though--from the Bible, Antony and Cleopatra, history/lore of snakes.
I always try to write as little as possible before actually writing, or else I don't write it at all.
So then there are the more linear things, with actual plots. I took a writing class from Justin Cronin once. He was a guest prof at my university. Let me tell you, the guy's a douche, but he had some great things to say about writing. One was that writing must be worked on, and yes, there are some things you can only access through practice, experience, and/or intuition, but that many, many things can be taught. And the thing he taught the best was parallel plot lines.
He had this map for writing. This is a crappy graph, but it's a little like what he drew on the board, and picturing it has often helped me:
The green line is a plotline. Its peak is the climax; the downward turn is the resolution. The purple line is a second, intersecting plotline, and it is just slightly off of the first plotline. I think he called this a "two track" story.
The examples he showed were mostly stories in which the two tracks have little to do with each other, plot-wise. Rarely were they linked by events; sometimes they were linked by having the same characters; and most often they were just linked thematically. People in the class were big fans of the thematic link. The coolest thing about it is because of the way things line up, you don't have to state what the thematic resonance is; you just tell the two stories and they build off each other.
However, I wasn't, and still am not, a huge fan of the type of stories where the two plots really have nothing to do with each other except for theme. I'm a huge fan of theme, but those stories really kind of read as sort of, I don't know, avant garde post-modern experiments, specifically designed to make the reader go, "Yes, but what does it mean?" Although I participate in quite my share of rather avant garde experimentation, it's not really the highly detail oriented, snarky yet spiteful Johnathan Franzen sort of crap. Cronin was a big fan of Franzen.
Anywhoodle, the prof did point out that the same structure can be useful to work with two different timelines. Say, you are writing a story about Faith getting wings. Well, you can give the story more power and resonance by also telling a back story about Faith having to kill Dana. Using the two-track method, you separate everything with jump-cuts. (That's what he called them. Does everyone call them that? It's the break you use, sometimes with asterisks. Pynchon used little boxes. 〉 〉 〉 Those were so cool! It just cracks me up to use † in SPN fics.)
Okay, so a bit about the fic I just wrote, Hope Has Wings (But Faith Has Broadsword) (here on AO3, here on LJ, or here on DW, though you don't have to have read it to understand this discussion. I'm about to summarize it!) In it, Faith gets wings, bestowed upon her by a mysterious entity Faith believes to be an angel, but Buffy thinks is just another demon. It's supposed to be about their outlook on life--Buffy's view seems rather bleak, whereas Faith's seems rather hopeful. But gradually you find out that it's Faith's outlook that is bleak--she thinks the wings are a punishment from God. And it's Buffy who is hopeful--she thinks Faith doesn't deserve to be punished, so believes that the wings are arbitrary bad luck--just another demon fucking with them.
This comes out through a backstory about Dana, the crazy Slayer from the episode "Damage," on AtS. Buffy wanted to help Dana. Faith wanted to help her too, but a part of her believe Dana to be beyond help (just as a part of her believes that she herself is beyond help). Faith ends up having to kill Dana in self-defense/to protect others/in an accident. Buffy believes it to be an act of mercy/heroism, and forgives her, but Faith is unable to forgive herself. These attitudes illuminate the different reactions to Faith's wings and the "angel."
Okay, so the initial idea was that Faith would get wings, and then have to kill Dana. It's something Buffy would never do, and yet by doing it, Faith saves them all. I loved the image of Faith as an angel of mercy, but that mercy being a violent, warrior-like thing. Should have worked more Valkyries in there, really. I wanted also for Faith to see the wings as this gift, but then realize they weren't, because she has to be the ugly one, and kill Dana.
Part of the reason I didn't write it that way was I just didn't have time. That's a very very sad story, really, and should be treated with time and attention and carefulness, which I just didn't have.
By the time I realized that, I had already started writing it, and it already had a time jump. The story takes place in a mansion in England, where Buffy and Faith are dealing with problem Slayers. I had to explain how they got the mansion, why they're in England, and what they're doing there, not to mention how they got Dana, etc. So then it occurred to me that the entire Dana story could have happened in the past, and therefore it wouldn't be quite as painful and immediate, and I could sort of rush over and summarize what was up with Dana, and why she died. (I also made it a lot more like a suicide, because to write it such that Faith has to go out and consciously murder Dana would be a lot of work, and too dark to handle in the time I had). So, then, Faith sees the wings as penance, rather than a reward, which worked much better with Buffy, not understanding how Faith sees the world.
So anyway, I had this back story where the obvious climax is Dana dying, and then this "present time" story about Faith getting wings, with the climax being the slaying of the angel. You could just tell the Dana story first and then the Faith one, but then they really should be separate stories, because you'll end up with two climaxes very far apart. Basically, once you start your resolution and that goes on for at around 2-4 on the graph, people feel like it's over, or they're starting over. And if they feel that way, they'll be frustrated, because the story isn't following the shape that they're familiar with, and they won't understand where you're going.
Anywho, I didn't want to write two stories, because the plots I wanted to tell were linked by time, characters, and theme. So, you make them one story with two plots.
One thing the graph shows you is you have to evenly spread the plots out. That doesn't mean your two plots have to be the same lengths; it just means you have to arrange them so certain things happen at the same time.
I didn't write an outline for this fic, but right now, the story looks like this:
-present time: touched by an angel
-present time: was it an angel?
-present time: Buffy knows something's up with Faith (bit of backstory)
-backstory: where they got the mansion, explanation of backstory
-present time: Faith gets wings
-present time: feather down, discuss angels
-backstory: where they got Dana
-present time: mostly filler
-present time: molting, more debates about the angel
-backstory: fighting about what to do with Dana
-present time: Buffy/Faith hurt/comfort
-present time: Faith gets a sword
-backstory: Dana dies
-present time: slay the angel
-present time: tie up present time story and backstory with Dana's grave
So, for every two "present time" pieces there's one "backstory" piece. Even though I never really wrote this down, it's what I had in my head. I was pretty unhappy about there being three "present time" pieces in the beginning, because I feel like the first "backstory" piece is too late. And the third "present time" piece has a piece of the backstory within it, which makes the outline messy, but it does introduce the concept of the backstory before we get to the actual backstory piece.
I was also upset because the "present time" piece labeled "mostly filler" wasn't there before. This ruined the patterned, making it so there was only one "present time" piece between either "backstory" piece. But I couldn't think of anything else to happen with Faith's wings, and there was just so much talking that it seemed dumb to write more talking just to give me two "present time" pieces and make the story even. And yet it was uneven, and I was unhappy--until I remembered that I had written a conversation about Warren and X-men in another draft. I thought it was funny, so I just cut it out from the previous draft and pasted it in.
Okay, so another example of the double track thing was The Boy Who Only Lived Twice. In this fic, Harry is a secret agent, call sign Blackbird. He develops a relationship with Rabbit, another secret agent. The secret agent is actually Draco, but Harry doesn't know. Draco eventually finds out that Harry is Blackbird, though, and as Draco, starts a relationship with Harry-as-Harry. Blackbird and Rabbit continue to have feeeeelings while H/D fuck. Then, of course, Harry finds out who Rabbit really is, the end.
The reason this one had to have two tracks was obvious: there's the Harry/Draco story, and the Blackbird/Rabbit story, and only when Harry finds out Draco is Rabbit do they merge. I did write an outline for the part when H/D are fucking and Blackbird/Rabbit are having feeeelings, less because I needed it, and more because I wanted to show the mods I did have a plan. It was almost mathematical, really. You just gotta switch every other scene, and I didn't really know what the scenes were, just that they had to go back and forth. This is what I sent the mods at the bottom of the first draft I sent, asking for an extension. I had written up to the point where Draco finds out who Blackbird is. This is a list of the things that were to happen directly after that:
-Ministry party (flashback to Harry asking Rabbit to come), Malfoy shows up
-scene with Rabbit after party
-Malfoy in a coffee shop
-scene with Rabbit? (no Malfoy)
-gradual Malfoy stuff
-scene with Rabbit; Rabbit saves Harry
-Harry/Draco
-Harry with Rabbit afterwards, guilty.
-more Harry/Draco
-more Rabbit?
-Harry/Draco revealed to the press?
-Harry tells Rabbit that Draco means nothing
-more Harry/Draco; Draco tells Harry he wants more; Harry’s in love with someone else
-poor Rabbit! Slight Harry/Rabbit
-Draco breaks up with Harry
-Harry’s distracted with Rabbit (hopeful Rabbit)
-Harry shows up again on Draco’s proverbial doorstep, Harry/Draco
-happy Rabbit
-there’s a rat; Harry learns Rabbit is Draco, thinks he’s the rat
-Harry believes in Draco and they escape, take down the bad guys!
-Happy ever after :o)
Okay, for those of you who have read the story, that's not really how it goes. How it ended up going was more like this:
-H/D: the Ministry gala (with flashback to Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird asking Rabbit to go)
-Blackbird/Rabbit: reaction to the Ministry gala, Blackbird asks Rabbit to the pub
-H/D: the pub
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase, Blackbird asks Rabbit to go flying
-H/D: flying, then epic porn
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus (foreshadowing more porn)
-H/D: more porn
-H/D: summary--sex becomes a regular thing; series of scenes: Draco almost making tea, argument about morality
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
-H/D: more porn, Draco freaking about Harry's injury, Draco breaks up with him
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird "breaks up" with Harry
-Harry alone: thinks about Talon, about Rabbit, about Malfoy, then Harry & Luna
-H/D: Malfoy returns!
-H/D: Malfoy stays!
-Blackbird alone: works with Talon, then merges into H/D: summary--they're comfortable together, Harry even goes to Malfoy's flat!
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird tells Rabbit that Draco means nothing
-Blackbird captured, contemplates life
-H/D: Draco shows up and Harry realizes the truth
-H/D, Blackbird/Rabbit: epic battle! both plots merge
-H/D, Blackbird/Rabbit: Happily ever after :o)
This is a little more uneven than say, the Faith fic. At first, I was considerably upset with this portion:
-H/D: more porn
-H/D: summary--sex becomes a regular thing; series of scenes: Draco almost making tea, argument about morality
...because it was two H/D things in a row. However, I was getting down to the wire I didn't really have any more Blackbird/Rabbit in me to put between those two bits. Basically I felt like the Blackbird/Rabbit build-up is over when Harry gets injured. After that, I felt like the Blackbird/Rabbit stuff has to climax, which it does in two parts: when Blackbird gets reassigned, and when Harry gets captured.
So the unevenness of that meant that I had stopped caring by the time I got to this:
-H/D: Malfoy returns!
-H/D: Malfoy stays!
This is the scene in which Malfoy shows up and says he can't do it alone, and Harry puts him in the shower and they go to bed, followed by a morning after scene, in which Malfoy is still there in Harry's bed. These were actually really part of the same piece anyway, but I had to separate them with a jump cut because linking them without one just felt awkward. Really, I should have done that here:
-H/D: flying, then epic porn
This is the scene in which Draco goes to fly with Harry, but Harry brushes him off; then they go back to Grimmauld Place to have sex with each other for the first time. There really should have been a jump cut between those scenes, because the part where the Apparate to Grimmauld and even the part where Draco's looking around Grimmauld is just filler to connect the important parts. But I was worried about having two H/D bits in a row, so I just fucked it up and made it way longer and more uneven by trying to write it as one scene.
Okay, so the reason I'm talking about this one, and the reason it's interesting to me shape-wise, is that on first draft, the beginning looked like this:
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird meets his new handler and thinks he's a dweeb
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit is dweebish
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit gives Blackbird a dangerous spell, a la Half-blood Prince, and Blackbird realizes Rabbit may not be a dweeb after all
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird flirts with a foreign dignitary while Rabbit says snarky things about it over the Dictus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase, Blackbird asks Rabbit to go flying
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus (foreshadowing more porn)
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
The plan was to go from there into:
-H/D: the Ministry gala (with flashback to Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird asking Rabbit to go)
-Blackbird/Rabbit: reaction to the Ministry gala, Blackbird asks Rabbit to the pub
Hopefully you see the problem: suddenly, Malfoy!
There's H/D where there was no H/D before, and a big long long chunk of Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird/Rabbit before Malfoy ever gets mentioned.
The problem with this story was that you needed to have a plot where Harry gets to know Rabbit, and basically has feeeeeelings for Rabbit. This gives time for Rabbit to develop feelings for Harry, giving Draco incentive to seek Harry out when Rabbit learns that Blackbird is Harry. But that means there is a great deal of time where it's just Rabbit and Harry, and Draco isn't on the scene at all. Of course, he is on the scene, because Rabbit is Draco, but the reader has to know that.
If the reader doesn't know that, the story is going to look very uneven. Even if the reader does know, if you're going to have Malfoy at the end of a story, you've got to have him at the beginning. It has to do with shape: it's always the butler whodunit, because the butler is always there; readers feel betrayed if the whodunit was some Random Dude you'd never heard of before.
(I see a lot of breaking of that writing rule in fanfic, because readers come into the fics know way more than they do coming into original fic. Unless Random Dude is an OC [which would totally be awful writing] Random Dude is someone you know, even though that person might not have been mentioned yet in the story. Interestingly, Hope Has Wings (But Faith Has A Broadsword) disobeys this rule, because there's a rather important conversation with Willow near the end, and she's barely mentioned in the beginning. I thought I could get away with it because she is mentioned in the beginning, even if it's only a mention, and the conversation is really central to the theme, which is hammered out fairly closely to the beginning. Essentially this fic has been dealing with the problem of Calling Slayers all along, and that's what Willow's all about, in this conversation.)
But I firmly believe in Chekhov's Gun--not just that if you show the gun at the end of the first act, it must go off by the third, but also the reverse: if you fire a gun in the third act, it has to be present in the first.
Okay, so Malfoy has to be introduced in the beginning. But part of the point of the story is that Malfoy seeks Harry out because he knows that Harry is Blackbird. You could have a bunch of coincidences to start and H/D plotline before Malfoy knows who Harry is--but a really good rule of thumb is that coincidence is never as interesting as motivated acts.
So, what I decided to do was introduce a split timeline, give Malfoy a job where he is being "seen" but not interacting with Harry, and this also allows for a little Harry backstory. That will help, for one thing, make it feel more like a Harry Potter story--we don't know who Blackbird and Rabbit are, but if we show Harry's backstory, we can suggest a little of why/how he became Blackbird. I even managed to write a scene that suggests a little of why/how Draco became Rabbit, and makes the fact that Rabbit is Draco a bit more obvious, hopefully.
Okay, so now the story looked like this:
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird meets his new handler and thinks he's a dweeb
-(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry arrests Draco and tells him to be a better man
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit is dweebish
-(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry's drifting from Ron and Hermione, and is generally unhappy with his life, while Draco is a playboy/model/media darling
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit gives Blackbird a dangerous spell, a la Half-blood Prince, and Blackbird realizes Rabbit may not be a dweeb after all
-(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry breaks up with Ginny and Draco's still in the papers
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird flirts with a foreign dignitary while Rabbit says snarky things about it over the Dictus
-(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry hangs with Luna, Draco's still in the papers
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
Okay, so see that list of "Blackbird/Rabbit" all in a row at the end? I was inserting a Harry/Draco scene between every single Blackbird/Rabbit, and it was around here I realized I was sort fucked. For one thing, the backstory plot was getting a bit repetitive. Basically, it was "Harry's life sucks/he's disconnected from friends, and Draco's still in the papers" every time. All that was really needed was the scenes with Ron and Hermione, to establish Harry's drifted from his closest friends and Draco has begun a new career, and the subsequent Ginny scene, to establish why Harry's canon relationship didn't work.
The other problem was the deadline. If I was going to write more Harry/Draco background scenes to go in between all these Blackbird/Rabbit scenes, it was going to make the fic that much longer--and I hadn't even gotten to the part where Harry and Draco meet in present time, which basically brings the backstory up to speed and makes everything occur in present time, still alternating between Blackbird/Rabbit and Harry/Draco. I just didn't have time to write it all.
So, what I did was cut the Harry/Luna scene, first. Then, I cut:
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird flirts with a foreign dignitary while Rabbit says snarky things about it over the Dictus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
...hoping to use them later. These three scenes were supposed to be about Blackbird/Rabbit developing feeeeeelings and a really good working relationship, so instead, I did a lot of tell, instead of show. I actually have to remind myself over and over again that it's okay to tell--that in fact, sometimes telling is better than showing. If you show every single little thing, then for one thing you have an epic on your hands. For another, it can end up emphasizing little things that are not important, which means you have to do even more showing on the stuff that is important, in order to balance things out.
So, basically, I decided that even though it was fun, this story was not about Blackbird/Rabbit developing feeeeeelings and a really good working relationship. It's about Harry having feelings for Rabbit at the same time as he's developing feeeeeelings for Draco. So, I de-emphasized the Blackbird/Rabbit developing feeeeeelings and a really good working relationship bit by just summarizing it. I did end up working in an entirely new "Blackbird flirts with a foreign dignitary while Rabbit says snarky things about it over the Dictus" thing, though, and wedded it to another cut bit from somewhere, where Rabbit basically makes it clear he cares for Harry and Harry makes it clear he cares for Rabbit.
Then, to echo that with a "(backstory) Harry/Draco" bit, I did a bit of "telling" about Harry, which gave me a chance to explain Harry's "cover" job in relation to his job as an Unspeakable, and what his current life is like outside of being a super spy.
After that, there's:
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit finds out who Blackbird is scene
-H/D: the Ministry gala (with flashback to Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird asking Rabbit to go).
...which is where I really needed to be. At this point, I got to add back in the three "Blackbird/Rabbit" all in a row by inter-cutting them with the sex I always meant to write. So, this:
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
...became this:
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase, Blackbird asks Rabbit to go flying
-H/D: flying, then epic porn
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus (foreshadowing more porn)
-H/D: more porn
-H/D: summary--sex becomes a regular thing; series of scenes: Draco almost making tea, argument about morality
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
-H/D: more porn, Draco freaking about Harry's injury, Draco breaks up with him
The most difficult part of this was determining whether these Blackbird/Rabbit scenes still worked, because of course they had been written with the idea that Rabbit didn't know who Harry was in these scenes. I mostly rewrote all of them, but Rabbit is still a lot more sharp and cool than I think he would've been if I'd've first written these scenes with Rabbit knowing who Harry is. Those scenes still don't sit quite right with me, but I do think they made the distinction between Rabbit and Draco that much sharper for the readers, and of course the way the Marietta/Brutus feeds into the next sex scene is nice, and Harry's injury, and Rabbit not getting to react to it, but Draco getting to react to it--that was fun to write.
Overall I felt it worked much better this way, because then I wasn't writing a multitude of pointless "(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry's life sucks and Draco's still in the papers" scenes, and again, once I sat back and thought about it, the "-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured" really does feel like the last big thing that should happen with those two before the actual climax.
The one thing that really made me sad was cutting the Harry and Luna scene. But then, toward the end, I needed the bit where Harry is alone because Malfoy has left him to be longer, and I realized it might thematically resonate with the earlier backstory to add the Harry and Luna scene back in there. So:
-H/D: more porn, Draco freaking about Harry's injury, Draco breaks up with him
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird "breaks up" with Harry
-Harry alone: thinks about Talon, about Rabbit, about Malfoy, then Harry & Luna
I pasted it in there, then basically rewrote it, and thought it worked alright. The thing I don't like about it is it is a gun going off that wasn't set up in the beginning--Luna is barely mentioned in the beginning, and yet this Harry/Luna scene is, I don't know, an important part of the story, so Luna should've been foreshadowed at least a little more. But overall I'm pretty happy with that part; I like writing Luna.
Okay so . . . what I really mean to say is, I don't write outlines, and when I do, they tend to deal with the overall shape of the story. Even though I don't write them, though, I do keep a sort of mental list in my head that helps the story keep shape. And I like graphs? The end.
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Here are those questions for easy answerability. If you post answers in your journal, could you drop me a link? So we can get discussy, if you like. Or you can answer in comments. You don't have to answer them all! Pick and choose.
For answering with ease!
If you write things, do you make outlines?
Why or why not?
Do you always do it?
What do they look like?
How are they organized?
How extensive are they?
What info does your outline give you?
What doesn't it give you?
Do you like doing it, or does it feel like a lot of work?
Link to an outline of one of your stories (oh! A link to the final story would be cool too)?
Okay, here I'll discuss it a little. Okay or a lot. Knowing me.
I don't usually write outlines. You know how you keep reading a book because you want to see how it ends? Well, usually that's why I keep writing. It's not that I have no idea how something I'm writing ends. When you read The Hunger Games, you pretty much know what's going to happen. But you want to see how it happens, and usually once I can "see" the ending, I'm no longer interested. So I try not to look at it too hard.
This isn't the case for the more abstract, experimental things I write. Examples of those are (in HP) Oroboros, 5 Ways Draco Malfoy Tops, (in BtVS) Five Ways NFA Didn't End, Bodiless Within The Bodies, (in SPN) Let's Get Biblical. I just made a tag for abstract, non-linear prose.
For those, I usually write a little list. I usually erase them as I write each part of the list, so not many survive. But just for instance, the list for Blood Types (Buffyverse) would have been as simple as:
-Darla
-Drusilla
-Gypsy girl
-Rats
-Buffy
-Kate
-Wesley
When you look at the fic, each of those names is a big bold heading, and following each heading is a little description of what their blood tasted like to Angel. The whole point, obviously, is it's a list.
It gets a little less obvious and coherent for a fic like Silver Tongues. This is a Harry/Draco fic about Harry still being a Parselmouth after he kills Voldemort. Basically, Harry is corrupted by power/being possessed/having been possessed/having had to kill, which results in harmful dominant tendencies. Meanwhile, Draco is corrupted by fear/having been manipulated and controlled/etc, which results in harmful submissive tendencies. This is what I found in an old document; I really have no idea what it means:
1. Temptation
Harry - to seduce
Draco - Eden
2. Possession
Harry - well, duh
Draco - (Bella)Ginny
3. Suicide
Harry - immortality (Neville’s sword)
Draco - Cleopatra
4. Sex?
Harry - well, duh
Draco - succor? solace
But if you look at the fic, the first two parts are about temptation--first, Harry's temptation to seduce--a la, the temptation to become the tempter in the garden. Second, Draco's temptation for knowledge--Eve, in the garden of Eden (baby).
The next two parts are about possession. Harry has obviously been possessed by Voldemort (that's why it says, "well, duh"--it basically happens canonically). The "Ginny" part next to "Draco" after "2." has been moved up to parallel Harry. Ginny was also possessed by Voldemort (and who is a stand in for Hogwarts, which was invaded [possessed] by a basilisk). Draco is possessed because he's controlled by his fear of Voldemort, and it's driving him mad--which is also what happened to Bella.
So, really, this fic should have been 8 parts. Each number represents a theme, which I explored for Harry, then Draco. I remember now--I had actually only wanted to write 4 parts; each part would explore the theme for Harry and Draco both. But everything kept getting longer because I was trying this weird thing where the last word of every sentence was also the first word of the next sentence. This meant I was writing needless things, filling up space just for the sake of the pattern (the idea was oroboros, a snake eating its tail).
It made it so I lost the thread, and ended up sort of merging the last two themes, which is why there were six sections total. But basically, that's a whole lot of thought and planning and patterns, but the above is the only outline I wrote. The "planning" document does have a lot references about snakes, though--from the Bible, Antony and Cleopatra, history/lore of snakes.
I always try to write as little as possible before actually writing, or else I don't write it at all.
So then there are the more linear things, with actual plots. I took a writing class from Justin Cronin once. He was a guest prof at my university. Let me tell you, the guy's a douche, but he had some great things to say about writing. One was that writing must be worked on, and yes, there are some things you can only access through practice, experience, and/or intuition, but that many, many things can be taught. And the thing he taught the best was parallel plot lines.
He had this map for writing. This is a crappy graph, but it's a little like what he drew on the board, and picturing it has often helped me:
The green line is a plotline. Its peak is the climax; the downward turn is the resolution. The purple line is a second, intersecting plotline, and it is just slightly off of the first plotline. I think he called this a "two track" story.
The examples he showed were mostly stories in which the two tracks have little to do with each other, plot-wise. Rarely were they linked by events; sometimes they were linked by having the same characters; and most often they were just linked thematically. People in the class were big fans of the thematic link. The coolest thing about it is because of the way things line up, you don't have to state what the thematic resonance is; you just tell the two stories and they build off each other.
However, I wasn't, and still am not, a huge fan of the type of stories where the two plots really have nothing to do with each other except for theme. I'm a huge fan of theme, but those stories really kind of read as sort of, I don't know, avant garde post-modern experiments, specifically designed to make the reader go, "Yes, but what does it mean?" Although I participate in quite my share of rather avant garde experimentation, it's not really the highly detail oriented, snarky yet spiteful Johnathan Franzen sort of crap. Cronin was a big fan of Franzen.
Anywhoodle, the prof did point out that the same structure can be useful to work with two different timelines. Say, you are writing a story about Faith getting wings. Well, you can give the story more power and resonance by also telling a back story about Faith having to kill Dana. Using the two-track method, you separate everything with jump-cuts. (That's what he called them. Does everyone call them that? It's the break you use, sometimes with asterisks. Pynchon used little boxes. 〉 〉 〉 Those were so cool! It just cracks me up to use † in SPN fics.)
Okay, so a bit about the fic I just wrote, Hope Has Wings (But Faith Has Broadsword) (here on AO3, here on LJ, or here on DW, though you don't have to have read it to understand this discussion. I'm about to summarize it!) In it, Faith gets wings, bestowed upon her by a mysterious entity Faith believes to be an angel, but Buffy thinks is just another demon. It's supposed to be about their outlook on life--Buffy's view seems rather bleak, whereas Faith's seems rather hopeful. But gradually you find out that it's Faith's outlook that is bleak--she thinks the wings are a punishment from God. And it's Buffy who is hopeful--she thinks Faith doesn't deserve to be punished, so believes that the wings are arbitrary bad luck--just another demon fucking with them.
This comes out through a backstory about Dana, the crazy Slayer from the episode "Damage," on AtS. Buffy wanted to help Dana. Faith wanted to help her too, but a part of her believe Dana to be beyond help (just as a part of her believes that she herself is beyond help). Faith ends up having to kill Dana in self-defense/to protect others/in an accident. Buffy believes it to be an act of mercy/heroism, and forgives her, but Faith is unable to forgive herself. These attitudes illuminate the different reactions to Faith's wings and the "angel."
Okay, so the initial idea was that Faith would get wings, and then have to kill Dana. It's something Buffy would never do, and yet by doing it, Faith saves them all. I loved the image of Faith as an angel of mercy, but that mercy being a violent, warrior-like thing. Should have worked more Valkyries in there, really. I wanted also for Faith to see the wings as this gift, but then realize they weren't, because she has to be the ugly one, and kill Dana.
Part of the reason I didn't write it that way was I just didn't have time. That's a very very sad story, really, and should be treated with time and attention and carefulness, which I just didn't have.
By the time I realized that, I had already started writing it, and it already had a time jump. The story takes place in a mansion in England, where Buffy and Faith are dealing with problem Slayers. I had to explain how they got the mansion, why they're in England, and what they're doing there, not to mention how they got Dana, etc. So then it occurred to me that the entire Dana story could have happened in the past, and therefore it wouldn't be quite as painful and immediate, and I could sort of rush over and summarize what was up with Dana, and why she died. (I also made it a lot more like a suicide, because to write it such that Faith has to go out and consciously murder Dana would be a lot of work, and too dark to handle in the time I had). So, then, Faith sees the wings as penance, rather than a reward, which worked much better with Buffy, not understanding how Faith sees the world.
So anyway, I had this back story where the obvious climax is Dana dying, and then this "present time" story about Faith getting wings, with the climax being the slaying of the angel. You could just tell the Dana story first and then the Faith one, but then they really should be separate stories, because you'll end up with two climaxes very far apart. Basically, once you start your resolution and that goes on for at around 2-4 on the graph, people feel like it's over, or they're starting over. And if they feel that way, they'll be frustrated, because the story isn't following the shape that they're familiar with, and they won't understand where you're going.
Anywho, I didn't want to write two stories, because the plots I wanted to tell were linked by time, characters, and theme. So, you make them one story with two plots.
One thing the graph shows you is you have to evenly spread the plots out. That doesn't mean your two plots have to be the same lengths; it just means you have to arrange them so certain things happen at the same time.
I didn't write an outline for this fic, but right now, the story looks like this:
-present time: touched by an angel
-present time: was it an angel?
-present time: Buffy knows something's up with Faith (bit of backstory)
-backstory: where they got the mansion, explanation of backstory
-present time: Faith gets wings
-present time: feather down, discuss angels
-backstory: where they got Dana
-present time: mostly filler
-present time: molting, more debates about the angel
-backstory: fighting about what to do with Dana
-present time: Buffy/Faith hurt/comfort
-present time: Faith gets a sword
-backstory: Dana dies
-present time: slay the angel
-present time: tie up present time story and backstory with Dana's grave
So, for every two "present time" pieces there's one "backstory" piece. Even though I never really wrote this down, it's what I had in my head. I was pretty unhappy about there being three "present time" pieces in the beginning, because I feel like the first "backstory" piece is too late. And the third "present time" piece has a piece of the backstory within it, which makes the outline messy, but it does introduce the concept of the backstory before we get to the actual backstory piece.
I was also upset because the "present time" piece labeled "mostly filler" wasn't there before. This ruined the patterned, making it so there was only one "present time" piece between either "backstory" piece. But I couldn't think of anything else to happen with Faith's wings, and there was just so much talking that it seemed dumb to write more talking just to give me two "present time" pieces and make the story even. And yet it was uneven, and I was unhappy--until I remembered that I had written a conversation about Warren and X-men in another draft. I thought it was funny, so I just cut it out from the previous draft and pasted it in.
Okay, so another example of the double track thing was The Boy Who Only Lived Twice. In this fic, Harry is a secret agent, call sign Blackbird. He develops a relationship with Rabbit, another secret agent. The secret agent is actually Draco, but Harry doesn't know. Draco eventually finds out that Harry is Blackbird, though, and as Draco, starts a relationship with Harry-as-Harry. Blackbird and Rabbit continue to have feeeeelings while H/D fuck. Then, of course, Harry finds out who Rabbit really is, the end.
The reason this one had to have two tracks was obvious: there's the Harry/Draco story, and the Blackbird/Rabbit story, and only when Harry finds out Draco is Rabbit do they merge. I did write an outline for the part when H/D are fucking and Blackbird/Rabbit are having feeeelings, less because I needed it, and more because I wanted to show the mods I did have a plan. It was almost mathematical, really. You just gotta switch every other scene, and I didn't really know what the scenes were, just that they had to go back and forth. This is what I sent the mods at the bottom of the first draft I sent, asking for an extension. I had written up to the point where Draco finds out who Blackbird is. This is a list of the things that were to happen directly after that:
-Ministry party (flashback to Harry asking Rabbit to come), Malfoy shows up
-scene with Rabbit after party
-Malfoy in a coffee shop
-scene with Rabbit? (no Malfoy)
-gradual Malfoy stuff
-scene with Rabbit; Rabbit saves Harry
-Harry/Draco
-Harry with Rabbit afterwards, guilty.
-more Harry/Draco
-more Rabbit?
-Harry/Draco revealed to the press?
-Harry tells Rabbit that Draco means nothing
-more Harry/Draco; Draco tells Harry he wants more; Harry’s in love with someone else
-poor Rabbit! Slight Harry/Rabbit
-Draco breaks up with Harry
-Harry’s distracted with Rabbit (hopeful Rabbit)
-Harry shows up again on Draco’s proverbial doorstep, Harry/Draco
-happy Rabbit
-there’s a rat; Harry learns Rabbit is Draco, thinks he’s the rat
-Harry believes in Draco and they escape, take down the bad guys!
-Happy ever after :o)
Okay, for those of you who have read the story, that's not really how it goes. How it ended up going was more like this:
-H/D: the Ministry gala (with flashback to Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird asking Rabbit to go)
-Blackbird/Rabbit: reaction to the Ministry gala, Blackbird asks Rabbit to the pub
-H/D: the pub
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase, Blackbird asks Rabbit to go flying
-H/D: flying, then epic porn
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus (foreshadowing more porn)
-H/D: more porn
-H/D: summary--sex becomes a regular thing; series of scenes: Draco almost making tea, argument about morality
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
-H/D: more porn, Draco freaking about Harry's injury, Draco breaks up with him
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird "breaks up" with Harry
-Harry alone: thinks about Talon, about Rabbit, about Malfoy, then Harry & Luna
-H/D: Malfoy returns!
-H/D: Malfoy stays!
-Blackbird alone: works with Talon, then merges into H/D: summary--they're comfortable together, Harry even goes to Malfoy's flat!
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird tells Rabbit that Draco means nothing
-Blackbird captured, contemplates life
-H/D: Draco shows up and Harry realizes the truth
-H/D, Blackbird/Rabbit: epic battle! both plots merge
-H/D, Blackbird/Rabbit: Happily ever after :o)
This is a little more uneven than say, the Faith fic. At first, I was considerably upset with this portion:
-H/D: more porn
-H/D: summary--sex becomes a regular thing; series of scenes: Draco almost making tea, argument about morality
...because it was two H/D things in a row. However, I was getting down to the wire I didn't really have any more Blackbird/Rabbit in me to put between those two bits. Basically I felt like the Blackbird/Rabbit build-up is over when Harry gets injured. After that, I felt like the Blackbird/Rabbit stuff has to climax, which it does in two parts: when Blackbird gets reassigned, and when Harry gets captured.
So the unevenness of that meant that I had stopped caring by the time I got to this:
-H/D: Malfoy returns!
-H/D: Malfoy stays!
This is the scene in which Malfoy shows up and says he can't do it alone, and Harry puts him in the shower and they go to bed, followed by a morning after scene, in which Malfoy is still there in Harry's bed. These were actually really part of the same piece anyway, but I had to separate them with a jump cut because linking them without one just felt awkward. Really, I should have done that here:
-H/D: flying, then epic porn
This is the scene in which Draco goes to fly with Harry, but Harry brushes him off; then they go back to Grimmauld Place to have sex with each other for the first time. There really should have been a jump cut between those scenes, because the part where the Apparate to Grimmauld and even the part where Draco's looking around Grimmauld is just filler to connect the important parts. But I was worried about having two H/D bits in a row, so I just fucked it up and made it way longer and more uneven by trying to write it as one scene.
Okay, so the reason I'm talking about this one, and the reason it's interesting to me shape-wise, is that on first draft, the beginning looked like this:
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird meets his new handler and thinks he's a dweeb
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit is dweebish
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit gives Blackbird a dangerous spell, a la Half-blood Prince, and Blackbird realizes Rabbit may not be a dweeb after all
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird flirts with a foreign dignitary while Rabbit says snarky things about it over the Dictus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase, Blackbird asks Rabbit to go flying
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus (foreshadowing more porn)
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
The plan was to go from there into:
-H/D: the Ministry gala (with flashback to Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird asking Rabbit to go)
-Blackbird/Rabbit: reaction to the Ministry gala, Blackbird asks Rabbit to the pub
Hopefully you see the problem: suddenly, Malfoy!
There's H/D where there was no H/D before, and a big long long chunk of Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird/Rabbit before Malfoy ever gets mentioned.
The problem with this story was that you needed to have a plot where Harry gets to know Rabbit, and basically has feeeeeelings for Rabbit. This gives time for Rabbit to develop feelings for Harry, giving Draco incentive to seek Harry out when Rabbit learns that Blackbird is Harry. But that means there is a great deal of time where it's just Rabbit and Harry, and Draco isn't on the scene at all. Of course, he is on the scene, because Rabbit is Draco, but the reader has to know that.
If the reader doesn't know that, the story is going to look very uneven. Even if the reader does know, if you're going to have Malfoy at the end of a story, you've got to have him at the beginning. It has to do with shape: it's always the butler whodunit, because the butler is always there; readers feel betrayed if the whodunit was some Random Dude you'd never heard of before.
(I see a lot of breaking of that writing rule in fanfic, because readers come into the fics know way more than they do coming into original fic. Unless Random Dude is an OC [which would totally be awful writing] Random Dude is someone you know, even though that person might not have been mentioned yet in the story. Interestingly, Hope Has Wings (But Faith Has A Broadsword) disobeys this rule, because there's a rather important conversation with Willow near the end, and she's barely mentioned in the beginning. I thought I could get away with it because she is mentioned in the beginning, even if it's only a mention, and the conversation is really central to the theme, which is hammered out fairly closely to the beginning. Essentially this fic has been dealing with the problem of Calling Slayers all along, and that's what Willow's all about, in this conversation.)
But I firmly believe in Chekhov's Gun--not just that if you show the gun at the end of the first act, it must go off by the third, but also the reverse: if you fire a gun in the third act, it has to be present in the first.
Okay, so Malfoy has to be introduced in the beginning. But part of the point of the story is that Malfoy seeks Harry out because he knows that Harry is Blackbird. You could have a bunch of coincidences to start and H/D plotline before Malfoy knows who Harry is--but a really good rule of thumb is that coincidence is never as interesting as motivated acts.
So, what I decided to do was introduce a split timeline, give Malfoy a job where he is being "seen" but not interacting with Harry, and this also allows for a little Harry backstory. That will help, for one thing, make it feel more like a Harry Potter story--we don't know who Blackbird and Rabbit are, but if we show Harry's backstory, we can suggest a little of why/how he became Blackbird. I even managed to write a scene that suggests a little of why/how Draco became Rabbit, and makes the fact that Rabbit is Draco a bit more obvious, hopefully.
Okay, so now the story looked like this:
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird meets his new handler and thinks he's a dweeb
-(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry arrests Draco and tells him to be a better man
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit is dweebish
-(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry's drifting from Ron and Hermione, and is generally unhappy with his life, while Draco is a playboy/model/media darling
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit gives Blackbird a dangerous spell, a la Half-blood Prince, and Blackbird realizes Rabbit may not be a dweeb after all
-(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry breaks up with Ginny and Draco's still in the papers
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird flirts with a foreign dignitary while Rabbit says snarky things about it over the Dictus
-(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry hangs with Luna, Draco's still in the papers
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
Okay, so see that list of "Blackbird/Rabbit" all in a row at the end? I was inserting a Harry/Draco scene between every single Blackbird/Rabbit, and it was around here I realized I was sort fucked. For one thing, the backstory plot was getting a bit repetitive. Basically, it was "Harry's life sucks/he's disconnected from friends, and Draco's still in the papers" every time. All that was really needed was the scenes with Ron and Hermione, to establish Harry's drifted from his closest friends and Draco has begun a new career, and the subsequent Ginny scene, to establish why Harry's canon relationship didn't work.
The other problem was the deadline. If I was going to write more Harry/Draco background scenes to go in between all these Blackbird/Rabbit scenes, it was going to make the fic that much longer--and I hadn't even gotten to the part where Harry and Draco meet in present time, which basically brings the backstory up to speed and makes everything occur in present time, still alternating between Blackbird/Rabbit and Harry/Draco. I just didn't have time to write it all.
So, what I did was cut the Harry/Luna scene, first. Then, I cut:
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird flirts with a foreign dignitary while Rabbit says snarky things about it over the Dictus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
...hoping to use them later. These three scenes were supposed to be about Blackbird/Rabbit developing feeeeeelings and a really good working relationship, so instead, I did a lot of tell, instead of show. I actually have to remind myself over and over again that it's okay to tell--that in fact, sometimes telling is better than showing. If you show every single little thing, then for one thing you have an epic on your hands. For another, it can end up emphasizing little things that are not important, which means you have to do even more showing on the stuff that is important, in order to balance things out.
So, basically, I decided that even though it was fun, this story was not about Blackbird/Rabbit developing feeeeeelings and a really good working relationship. It's about Harry having feelings for Rabbit at the same time as he's developing feeeeeelings for Draco. So, I de-emphasized the Blackbird/Rabbit developing feeeeeelings and a really good working relationship bit by just summarizing it. I did end up working in an entirely new "Blackbird flirts with a foreign dignitary while Rabbit says snarky things about it over the Dictus" thing, though, and wedded it to another cut bit from somewhere, where Rabbit basically makes it clear he cares for Harry and Harry makes it clear he cares for Rabbit.
Then, to echo that with a "(backstory) Harry/Draco" bit, I did a bit of "telling" about Harry, which gave me a chance to explain Harry's "cover" job in relation to his job as an Unspeakable, and what his current life is like outside of being a super spy.
After that, there's:
-(present time) Blackbird/Rabbit: Rabbit finds out who Blackbird is scene
-H/D: the Ministry gala (with flashback to Blackbird/Rabbit, Blackbird asking Rabbit to go).
...which is where I really needed to be. At this point, I got to add back in the three "Blackbird/Rabbit" all in a row by inter-cutting them with the sex I always meant to write. So, this:
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
...became this:
-Blackbird/Rabbit: epic broom chase, Blackbird asks Rabbit to go flying
-H/D: flying, then epic porn
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Marietta/Brutus (foreshadowing more porn)
-H/D: more porn
-H/D: summary--sex becomes a regular thing; series of scenes: Draco almost making tea, argument about morality
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured
-H/D: more porn, Draco freaking about Harry's injury, Draco breaks up with him
The most difficult part of this was determining whether these Blackbird/Rabbit scenes still worked, because of course they had been written with the idea that Rabbit didn't know who Harry was in these scenes. I mostly rewrote all of them, but Rabbit is still a lot more sharp and cool than I think he would've been if I'd've first written these scenes with Rabbit knowing who Harry is. Those scenes still don't sit quite right with me, but I do think they made the distinction between Rabbit and Draco that much sharper for the readers, and of course the way the Marietta/Brutus feeds into the next sex scene is nice, and Harry's injury, and Rabbit not getting to react to it, but Draco getting to react to it--that was fun to write.
Overall I felt it worked much better this way, because then I wasn't writing a multitude of pointless "(backstory) Harry/Draco: Harry's life sucks and Draco's still in the papers" scenes, and again, once I sat back and thought about it, the "-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird gets injured" really does feel like the last big thing that should happen with those two before the actual climax.
The one thing that really made me sad was cutting the Harry and Luna scene. But then, toward the end, I needed the bit where Harry is alone because Malfoy has left him to be longer, and I realized it might thematically resonate with the earlier backstory to add the Harry and Luna scene back in there. So:
-H/D: more porn, Draco freaking about Harry's injury, Draco breaks up with him
-Blackbird/Rabbit: Blackbird "breaks up" with Harry
-Harry alone: thinks about Talon, about Rabbit, about Malfoy, then Harry & Luna
I pasted it in there, then basically rewrote it, and thought it worked alright. The thing I don't like about it is it is a gun going off that wasn't set up in the beginning--Luna is barely mentioned in the beginning, and yet this Harry/Luna scene is, I don't know, an important part of the story, so Luna should've been foreshadowed at least a little more. But overall I'm pretty happy with that part; I like writing Luna.
Okay so . . . what I really mean to say is, I don't write outlines, and when I do, they tend to deal with the overall shape of the story. Even though I don't write them, though, I do keep a sort of mental list in my head that helps the story keep shape. And I like graphs? The end.
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