Story Planning - Outlining - Breaking - Carding

The editable (and thus functional) Apple Keynote files used to illustrate this post can be downloaded for a small fee. See this link.

However they do it, successful-efficient-productive story writers plan - outline - "card" - or - "break" long form stories before they write.

I've recently completed working with four different writers, helping them to break (or Outline, Plan, or Card) their story, and guide them through with the script writing, rewriting, end editing process. 

Without becoming anal or planning too deeply, story planning of the major story beats, for both the main plot and the subplots, is easily accomplished (okay, nothing good is really easy) by using one or more visual methods for outlining the story.  I've used 4" X 6" index cards on a door wall with masking tape, and I've used color Post-It's on a 4' x 8' pice of masonite with the Story Diamond outlined on it. I've tried to use Final Draft's Beat Board, but still find it limiting in ways I find Keynote freeing. 

In the last few years I've found the use of Apple's KEYNOTE application on a Mac to be easy to use, flexible, and transportable. I emailed drafts of complex carding files (in Keynote) to Dubai, Beijing, Moscow, and and yes email works here in the U.S., too.  I like Keynote over PowerPoint because Keynote is easier to use in terms of duplicating cards, adjusting fonts, colors, card alignment, and the slide size (i.e. beat board) can be as large as 8,000 x 8,000 pixels. The "slides" can be shared in various fixed formats like jpg or PDF, or you can send off the entire keynote file.  If you'd like the keynote file that created the slides below (the file will work with Keynote 10 and later) just write and ask for it. I'll send it for free though email, or post a link for you to download.

If you've followed me I keep offering up different ways to break or card-out stories. These ideas come from working with different clients and their stories, which dictate what we need to create to facilitate the communication of the story beats, and how the story is structured.   So below are a few beat plates for Story Planning I've created in Keynote, with a few comments below each image. Related is this linked post on the 8 Mini-Movie Beat Plate.

Here are the slides (or beat plates). I think you can click on any image and see a larger version. These were saved as 8K square jpegs.

TRADITIONAL CARDS ON A TABLE OR WALL

The typical 3x5 or 4x6 cards written on with a felt pen and then stuck to a wall or laid-out on a table are also easy to move around and arrange in keynote. You can add highlights to the cards or use different color cards or pens to indicate scene breaks, turning points, climaxes, etc. Or you can use different rows or columns for the story sequences.

INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER ARC BREAKDOWNS

In the above graphic each column represents the plot or subplot for a character. Seeing the chronological ordering of cards like this (in one column, top to bottom) helps me to ensure that the beats are chronologically logical. Looking at the beats for a plot in sequence allows me to check if there is an easy to understand cause and effect relationship between the beats, as the story for that column progresses down. 

One column per subplot or character arc. The first card at the top of a column names the character or subplot and the character's physical goal.  The last card in the column should indicate the resolution of the goal. Somewhere in the middle is that subplot's Moment of Grace (MOG).  All subplots whether they are 3 beats (the minimum) or 20 need: (A) to focus on ONE character (even if that character is a town or ensemble); (B) a Physical Goal; ; (C) a MOG; thus leading to (D) the arc needs to be clearly redemptive (up), tragic (down), or ironic (a little up and down). Also, each arc should illustrate the Moral Premise for the story in different ways... and yes, all the subplots and arcs in a single story need to have a common Moral Premise. 

NOTE: There is NO relationship horizontally to the cards from one column to the next. A subplot with only 3 beats might not begin until the middle of the movie. Once these individual character subplots are chronologically laid out (as above), you would place them in a beat plate like the one below in one of the subplot rows... and arrange them chronologically with respect to the other beats of the other subplots. Being able to shift these beats/cards left and right (or add or subtract beats) is critical to story planning or beating out the story. 

The final thing I keep stressing is that the Protagonist or Hero has about 50% of all the dramatic beats in the whole story. Thus, Protagonist "A" may have 45 beats, and when you add up all the other character beats and all the other subplots you should have about 45 beats for the others as well. That means while the Protagonist has 45 beats, the next largest number of beats associated with a single character may be only 20. There should be no question about who the movie is about. See also Story Structure Basics

BLANK BEAT PLATE 8000 (not sure what to call this)

This beat plate is a derivation of the 8 Mini-Movie Beat Plate without the focus of the 8 Mini Movies. Time moves left to right. The color boxes down the left side (A-Z) identify each subplot. They should have text inserted in them that label the CHARACTER and their PHYSICAL GOAL for that subplot. "A" is the main plot and will have the most beats. Across the plate horizontally (in four places) are the traditional beat numbers (1-13 Major Beats), and a few ancillary beats explained in the Story Structure Basics post. The light blue vertical spaces indicate PINCH POINTS (PP) where the antagonist creates a challenge for the protagonist. They escalate from left to right. The dark blue vertical spaces indicate TURNING POINTS (TP) where the protagonist actually takes action to change the direction of the story, because of the Pinch Points. The gray spaces between the blue columns are sequences of multiple scenes that set up the PP or TB. The theory behind this "IDEAL" structure is that there is never a dull moment in your story, and there is a regular emotional roller coaster effect from beginning to end. The actual dynamics of the story, however, will not look this regular. This is theory, don't try to match it exactly. 

COMPLETE BEAT PLATE 8000

This is what the a completed beat plate may look like just prior to writing... obviously here without any of the text in the boxes (this is an actual beat plate for a client, used with permission). Notice all the white boxes in the main "A" plot. The plot lines A, B, C, and D all belong to the protagonist. Subplots T–Z belong to other characters, one of which is an institution (Z). The number of beats for the protagonist (A–D) is close to the number of beats for all the other subplots combined (T–Z).   The white boxes that are not in the A plot are notes and not actual beats. 

I hope you can see the advantage of BEAT PLATE 8000 compared TRADITIONAL CARDS. The completed beat plate lets you easily examine the beats's interplay and chronological juxtaposition of events, that the index cards on a table do not allow. 

And, yes, the rows in this BEAT PLATE 8000 (e.g the 8 beats/cards in the orange row) correspond to the column of 8 orange cards in the INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER ARC BREAKDOWNS graphic.   (But don't try to correlate the other columns with the beat plate above. The orange column and the orange row both having 8 beats was entirely coincidental. 

If you want me to help you on your story or script, see my Script Consulting Page.