ADVANCED OUTLINES: LAYERING FOR DEPTH

So now you have a basic story outline. A protagonist gets from Point A to Point B and some things happen in between. At this point, I suggest you pick up a copy of Wired for Story by Lisa Cron. Her book reveals the cognitive secrets of what hooks us into any given story. I’m going to cover some of the basics that I’ve built into my personal methodology but Lisa Cron’s book is a brilliant study of how the human brain works and how it reacts to elements of story—and why.

But right now, a demonstration of how layering around your basic outline creates depth without pulling your hair out. I’m going to use a minimal outline as an example: Poor Boy meets Rich Girl. Poor Boy must defeat insurmountable odds to date Rich Girl. Poor Boy changes his fate and dates Rich Girl.

1. Poor Boy meets Rich Girl.
2. Poor Boy must defeat insurmountable odds to win Rich Girl.
3. Poor Boy changes his fate and dates Rich Girl. 

This is a very basic plot that’s been played out a million times. Because it’s so basic, it’s easy to customize. Writers take this simple plot and add layers and depth to it. If they do that well, the story line stands alone, individual and intoxicating. Examples of stories like this are A Knight’s Tale, The Princess Bride, Dirty Dancing, Grease and Aladdin. I used movies so you can quickly go watch these to break out the different story elements that keep you hooked. Would you say any of these movies are like each other other than being about a poor boy falling in love above his station? I wouldn’t.

STICK THE PROTAGONIST, HOOK THE READER

Now to add the layering. To hook readers, every story must elicit emotion, follow cause and effect, and have difficult trials to overcome. The reader must be able to have empathy with the protagonist so they care about the consequences. Bad things must happen to your protagonist repeatedly. Let them get out of their frying pans by jumping into their fires. And then have hot oil splat on them followed by the cat catching them, a good mauling and then the ultimate indignity of being spat out, half-digested in a hairball. 

That’s all external conflict, but a story must elicit emotion as well. If the reader isn’t caring, they aren’t sharing in the experience and will lose interest. A good way to get emotional attachment is with internal conflict. If a man jumps out of a moving car to escape a serial killer it’s interesting. If a man jumps out of a moving car to escape a serial killer in spite of his clinical road rash phobia, the reader forms an emotional bond. I mean, it’s logical. Who isn’t a little afraid of road rash?

Going back to the protagonist in the pan, if they have a phobia of fire, it would be almost impossible to get them to jump out of that pan. Imagine the agony of fear and sizzling feet. When they finally do jump, they make it just past the flames… only to be splashed in the hot oil. The reason they had a phobia of fires was because their poor mother was disfigured by a terrible cooking oil accident and your protagonist grew up affected by Mother’s shame of her appearance. We covered how important it is to hurt your protagonists physically and emotionally in HURTING HEROES, HAPPY READERS. That post tells you why you should hurt your heroes. Now we learn how to hurt our heroes. 

The point of this is to show how adding a little internal conflict (phobia of fire, childhood trauma) makes for a richer and more engaging plot. Back to our Poor Boy story. Let’s layer in some of the elements we just talked about.

1. Poor Boy meets Rich Girl.
   1. Shame at his lack of means prompts him to fake his wealth.
2. Poor Boy must defeat insurmountable odds to win Rich Girl.
   1. Needing money to afford the date, Poor Boy keeps a wallet he finds in the bathroom, despite being an honest guy.
3. Poor Boy changes his fate and dates Rich Girl.
   1. Poor Boy takes Rich Girl on a nice date.

Better, but now let’s add in some more pain and conflict.

1. Poor Boy meets Rich Girl.
   1. Shame at his lack of means prompts him to fake his wealth.
   2. His gross bravado makes Rich Girl think he’s a jerk. She agrees to go out with him with the intention of humiliating him.
2. Poor Boy must defeat insurmountable odds to win Rich Girl.
   1. Needing money to afford the date, Poor Boy keeps a wallet he finds in the bathroom despite being an honest guy.
   2. As he’s flashing his ill gotten cash he runs into his poor friend, a waiter, who asked for a loan earlier but Poor Boy said he had nothing to give him.
3. Poor Boy changes his fate and dates Rich Girl.
   1. Poor Boy takes Rich Girl on a nice date.
   2. Date is tainted when the angry friend/waiter points out what a jerk and a liar Rich Boy is to his date.

You can see where this is going, and it’s nowhere good for Poor Boy until he winds up as a hero, performing an ultimate act of selflessness in the face of abject loss… and the tables get turned. I can see all sorts of room for more conflict and inner turmoil. What if Poor Boy had just written an essay on honesty to try for a scholarship? To appease the angry waiter friend, he tries to give him some cash but Rich Girl recognizes her dad’s wallet. Poor Boy goes to jail. When the dad comes to pick up his wallet and confront the thief (who could have been a hero had he chosen the honest path) Poor Boy realizes the man is on the scholarship committee. All is lost: no girl, no friend, no scholarship. Every time he jumps out of the pan, the flames get hotter.

Layering in the conflicts around a basic story makes for an effective, engaging plot that gives a reader an emotional bond with the protagonist and keeps them turning pages. It makes it easy to see where emotional conflict can be added in, where the story might be sagging and keep track of subplots.

YOUR TAKEAWAY TASK

Watch one of the movies I named earlier and see if you can pick out the layers of internal and external conflict, the cause and effect logic and how many times the protagonist jumps out of the pan only to get burned worse. Then go over the basic outline you created last week and start adding in those layers.

If your protagonist needs to get in a boat to escape something, create a solid reason they can’t do it without internal struggle—leaving loved ones behind, fear of water, a monster is hunting, distrust of shipmates, leaky boat, premonition of doom… theepossibilities are as wide as your imagination. Then rinse and repeat.

This is part of my series on BUILDING STORY, available online for free here. The ebook is available on Amazon here. Thank you for being here.