Following is the transcript of the above video and Subscribe to my Channel for your free startup and meditation course and 3-5x weekly videos on startups, success models, and writing: https://www.youtube.
Now that you’ve cracked the foundation of an idea let’s talk about how to bring it to life with an outline.
There is a confusing array of outline methods out there. Snowflake, visual maps, flashlight outlining. And once again the surprising thing is that most of the people who are creating these methods have never been published. I wasted a lot of time trying to outline with these different approaches as well. But then it struck me that most of these outline methods were actually trying to help me come up with an idea. I already had an idea. So my task was actually much easier since all I needed was to express my idea in the simplest way possible.
You also have an idea from the previous section. So now I’ll show you the simple formula to create a story framework from the idea. The formula is L-O-C-K’ or LOCK. This was actually created by James Scott Bell and I find it very, very useful.
So what is ‘L-O-C-K’?
- L stands for lead.
- O for objective.
- C for conflict.
- K for knockout.
Every great story follows the same construct. There is a lead. The protagonist, who has a burning objective and faces an increasing crescendo of conflict in his or her attempt to accomplish the objective, and eventually there’s a final knockout in the end. Either the lead gets his objective or not or perhaps the outcome is mixed. He gets something different than he thought. That’s it! L-O-C-K. Lead, Objective, Conflict, Knockout. Let’s take the ‘Hunger Games’ for instance. At a very physical level, the core of the story is about the protagonist wanting to survive in the hunger games. That’s her objective. Everything that happens in the hunger games is a conflict with the eventual knockout being, she survives but with a little twist. Now take a more classic story. Captain Ahab wants to get Moby Dick, the whale. The core of the story is about the conflict in the path to reach the whale and in the eventual knockout, he loses. This is at a very functional level. But at a more metaphoric level, Katniss’s true objective is to fight the man. The inhumane system. And Captain Ahab’s knockout is a reminder for man to let nature be. which leads us to an important conclusion. As you create your ‘LOCK’ for your story Think of both the physical and the metaphorical version of it.
So what’s the lead’s objective, physically? And what is that objective a symbol of?
In my case, for instance, for ‘The Yoga of Max’s Discontent‘ this is what I had written. The lead is Max. A Wall Street banker, from the Bronx, who’s exposed to violence and suffering all his life. His objective at a physical level is to go on a solitary quest to the Indian Himalayas to find a teacher who can help him make sense of his past. His metaphorical objective is man’s classic quest. For the meaning of mortality. The conflict he faces along the journey is extreme hardship in nature. Both in the Himalayan mountains and the burning South Indian plains. His metaphorical conflict is the struggle to relinquish his attachment to physical and emotional discomfort. To realize his soul. The knockout obviously I won’t reveal yet. But the point here is that for the right depth in the story it should have both a physical and a metaphorical element. This will come automatically to you once you know your character in great depth. Everything flows from the character’s motivation. But we’ll touch on that in the next section. For now, just use this basic ‘L-O-C-K’ LOCK’ structure to create a macro framework for your novel. One question you may have is what if my character’s objective changes as he or she goes through the novel.
This will definitely happen because a great character transforms through the course of the story. At this stage when you define the ‘LOCK’ though think of the core of your story. the central objective and the central conflict in it. Then you can deconstruct the pieces around it. When the character starts off he may have a different objective. Then as he goes through the story his objective changes to be aligned to the core objective you’ve defined and in the end, it may change again. But the protagonist’s core objective is the central construct of your whole story.
Now let’s understand how a detailed outline emerges from the frame. First off, remember there are only two stories in all literature. One, man goes on a quest. Two, a stranger comes to town. Take any story, it’s one of those categories. Harry Potter goes on a quest to truly come into himself. A strange court case comes into town in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. So in some form or the other, your story is going to be one of these. So for our purpose let’s choose man-on-a-quest story and break it down a little. Any story has a three-act structure. The beginning, the middle, and the end. Overlaying the ‘LOCK’ frame, essentially means in the beginning your task is to set up the lead and the objective. The middle is all about the conflict that’s stopping him or her from getting the objective. And the ending is a knockout where he or she either gets his objective or doesn’t. We’ll talk about detailed principles about how to craft an excellent beginning, middle, and ending in the next module but these are the broad sections under which I want you to construct an outline. Now I’m going to use the archetypical hero’s journey to break your outline into smaller pieces. In the beginning, the lead is in his or her ordinary world. An inciting incident occurs. The lead understands his or her objective and he or she is then set out into the extraordinary world. That’s kind of the role of the beginning. The middle, the lead faces one conflict after another, physical and metaphorical, in this extraordinary world. He or she wins some, loses some. But with each conflict his or her understanding about himself or herself, deepens. The conflict reaches a crescendo. The lead faces a dark night of the soul. His or her darkest deepest moment. The blackest night before the dawn and now you know that the middle has ended. You move to the ending. In the ending, the lead uses everything he or she has learnt in the story to face the final conflict. And eventually, the lead wins or loses. But in every case, he or she is a changed person. Deeper and wiser because of the journey. Every man goes on a quest story follows a similar outline.
Take Harry Potter. He is in an ordinary world. The inciting incident occurs in the form of Hagrid delivering the letter. Harry leaves for Hogwarts where all the action happens and keeps building. Eventually, he has to find something deep within himself to defeat Voldemort. So the same construct works every time. To know this is a broad outline, not a chapter-by-chapter breakdown. Your chapters will vary based on your story.
Also, there’ll be multiple characters along the way in the ordinary and the extraordinary world, that will propel the lead’s story forward. But we’ll talk about character development in the next section. Finally, I’m going to share a secret with you to maximize your publishing success. The purest would say it’s too formulaic but I’ve experimented with this and know it works. Your beginning should be no more than 20 percent of your story. That’s no more than 60 pages of a 300-page novel. Ideally lesser, say ten percent which is 30 pages. The middle should be the majority that is 80 percent of your story.
The ending once again should be ideally 10 percent of your story. The last 30 pages but no greater than 15 percent or 45 pages. Trust me, I’ve experimented extensively with this. For example, as soon as I cut my beginning from 60 pages to 30 pages my third novel acceptance rate doubled. And if you reflect more the reason for this is very logical. As we talked at the onset a story experience becomes immersive only once readers enter a new world. So the earlier you get into it, credibly, of course, the better. Now your second writing exercise is to create your detailed outline. Write down your ‘L-O-C-K’. Then use the beginning, middle, end outline to break your story into small pieces. That’s it. You’re done with the skeleton of a best-selling novel. Next, we’ll learn how to infuse it with flesh and blood.
Subscribe to my channel for your free startup and meditation course and 3-5x weekly videos on startups, success models and writing, https://www.youtube.
