: Re: How do I get from the plot outline to an scene-for-scene summary? My first milestone in writing a story is to have a complete, start to finish description of the sequence of events and character

@Hamaas631

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So far this has veered into a plotter/pantser debate, with pantsers expressing their disagreement over plotting instead of trying to answer the Q.

Plotting will make you think up a story. It will be constructed, flat, stereotypical.

That is just bad writing, plotting is not to blame, the writer is. The other side of that coin is pantsers whose story have no head or tail and go nowhere. It is a lot more likely to get utterly lost without plans. I am always amazed when a pantser is able to finish a coherent story.

I suspect that they are only able to do so because some order emerges from the chaos of their numerous drafts. They stumble in the dark till they start to see a light in the end of the miasmatic abyss they plunged themselves in. They self-mutilate, auto-enucleate, and chain themselves to a rock.

Though, given that some major authors are pantsers, I accept this blindly faltering "method", or more accurately lack of any method, as a valid alternative approach to plotting.

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Anyways, for you main Q, it depends. My approach is that the events need to be fleshed out. When you have your sequence of events you need to see it like a dream sequence. You need to live your scenes, feel the emotion, and perceive what yours senses are telling you. When you have that you should have your POV character, if you didn’t have one before. The more you advance, the more the POV character will come to life, that in turn will determine the scenes.

A possible approach is a hierarchical scene construction. Start with major scenes, the beginning, the act turns, the climax-resolution. Then flesh out the secondary plot points scenes. Then minor points, or scenes that are needed to fill in, or give context, to a plot point or character trait.

Yes, there can be multiple ways showing the events, you need to find the optimal way. The best scenes need to achieve the most objectives in the least amount of space. They do not follow one method but combine many. So mix up things like scene timing, action/reaction, MRU, rising tension, conflict in dialogue, subtext….

Each scene needs to be critical to the overall structure. I also think that the best scenes are original. Integrate all the needed elements, but surprise the readers. Take them in unexpected paths, show them something unanticipated, and dazzle your reader. This is how you avoid a story that is too linear, take some detour, garnish some sub-plots, and embroider some threads.

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