Essay Writing Series: How to Make an Outline

It’s that time of year again – like Spring, Tax Day, and the end of the school year, exam season is upon us. We all know what exams mean – essays. Nothing can be more infuriating than writing a good timed essay, but with a little practice essay writing can become much less painful. However, one of the most frustrating aspects of writing a timed essay comes from that racing-against-the-clock feeling that overrides almost all rational thought. With that in mind, we at Wordsmiths have decided to start a series aimed at helping you tackle the daunting task of writing a timed essay.

And what better to write our first article about than outlining? Outlining is almost like a lost art form; outlines that are done well are invaluable to good writing. Unfortunately, outlines seem to be one of those things that everyone has heard about but no one has really understood. Many seem to know what they’re for but not how to use them to their advantage – and this is a problem, especially when writing an essay.

Challenge Yourself

Why do we write? Some of us write to get all the ideas floating around in our heads out. Some of us write to share; for others, it’s more personal, more private. Some of us want to be the next great storyteller. Sometime’s our teachers force us to. But for all of us, writing (and writing a lot) is a chance to better ourselves. We want to be more creative, more clear, we want to get past writer’s block, and take that leap from “I’ll write that novel someday” to “I just wrote a novel!”. But most of us run into the biggest question of all- how?

11 Tips to Help You Get Motivated

We’re going to take a moment here on Wordsmiths to address an issue that every person faces at one point or another in their writing: getting motivated. At times finding the motivation to start an essay or story feels like trying to find a grain of sand in a ton of wood shavings – the task itself looks difficult, and the award doesn’t really seem worth it either. People turn to procrastination instead of simply getting their work done because it’s easier – but it comes back to bite them eventually.

However, learning to avoid procrastination and motivate yourself to do your work can be one of the most useful abilities you’ll ever learn. Somehow there’s nothing quite as satisfying as finishing a long project – unfortunately, very few of us do. With a few steps in the right direction, though, you can stop putting off work and start getting work done.

Outlines are your friends

Whether writing a script, a novel or a school paper, organization is the name of the game. An unorganized novel or paper sounds sloppy, confusing and rushed. Writing without a plan is like throwing paint at a wall while blindfolded and expecting a masterpiece to come out of it (and no, you don’t count as an abstract artist). One way to write yourself out of the labyrinth is to make an outline.

Now, before you get too excited, outlines can be much more flexible than your fourth grade teacher told you, especially for creative writing. Here’s how to use them to your advantage:

Green Squiggles and Auto Correct: Why Word Hates You

Using Microsoft Word can be one of the most aggravating experiences a computer user might go through. Here’s a list of what you might run into, and some tips on making it less infuriating:

Character Flaws

Characterization is a tricky thing. For many first time writers, just working on telling astory is complicated enough, and as a result many important pieces of characterization are thrown to the wayside. The most common characterization mistake that many writers make concerns their character’s flaws; rather than creating a realistic, fallible character writers tend to create a character that is perfect and flawless.

Character Development

Characters are one of the biggest and most important elements of creative writing. Without them, what would the story be about? Because characters are so important in writing, the people you’re writing about need to be just as deep and complex as any other person you normally encounter in life. Without this element, the characters become fake and uninteresting. Readers will not be able to connect with the character on a deeper level because the character has no deeper level. Luckily, there are several writing prompts, worksheets, and lists available to the general public to learn every tiny and specific detail about your character. Here are some good sites to use as resources:

Golly Gee Whiz! Using Realistic Expressions

As an add-on to the dialogue post, take expressions into consideration when writing for characters. Consider your character’s environment, age and socioeconomic status. A socialite heiress wouldn’t be using street slang, and a character in California or New York won’t be using expressions from the deep South. Time periods are also important to consider. Online searches can easily dig up historical slang, from the age of Shakespeare to the Roaring Twenties. For modern day slang, just listen to the people around you or look online in places like Urban Dictionary. Remember that the expressions your grandmother uses are not the ones your friends are using, and that expressions differ across cultures (also keep in mind that characters would have trouble with idioms in other languages, which can be used to comedic (or dramatic) effect).

Helpful Resources

1. Write or Die – “Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.”
2. Celtx – free script-writing software
3. Focus Writer – “FocusWriter is a simple, distraction-free writing environment. It utilizes a hide-away interface that you access by moving your mouse to the edges of the screen, allowing the program to have a familiar look and feel to it while still getting out of the way so that you can immerse yourself in your work.”
4. Think Baby Names, What a Lovely Name, Behind the Name, and Behind the Surname – Good sites to look up names for characters.
5. The Pomodoro Technique – Named after the kitchen timer, “the Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that can be used for any kind of task.” See the Cheat Sheet here.
6. National Novel Writing Month – “National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.”
7. Script Frenzy (Screnzy) – “Script Frenzy is an international writing event in which participants take on the challenge of writing 100 pages of scripted material in the month of April.”

What’s A Hook?

“Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” – The Stranger, by Albert Camus

Have you even been hooked by a great opening line? The best writers know how to catch their readers’ attention with a hook. A hook can be a word or phrase or even just an idea. The goal is to make the reader interested enough in the book/play/movie/show to keep them reading or watching. Hooks can take many forms. In a book, it’s usually the first few lines or the first chapter or two. In television, the pilot is meant first and foremost to catch the interest of the studio executives, who decide whether the show gets funding or not.

Either way, a writer can have the best story ever written, but if they’re missing the hook very few people will read or watch it. One way to make a great hook is to start in medias res, or “in the middle”. Starting in the middle of the action is a way to wake up the audience and get their attention, maybe with a big fight scene, or with the protagonist’s capture. You could also start at the end. Perhaps everyone is attending the main character’s funeral, or  put your protagonist in a bizarre situation. Then, it’s up to the readers/audience to keep watching to find out what happened or how they got there. By revealing the ending in the beginning of the work, however, you risk losing tension in the work, since the readers/audience think they already know how it’s going to end. Most works that begin this way include a twist at the end (Surprise! The main character wasn’t dead after all) so that the readers/audience feel like they have an actual ending.

Great hooks are the first step to making great stories, so keep them in mind.

Happy writing!