Review in Practice: Million Dollar Outlines

Outline your novel for success, taught by a master writer and instructor.
Bestselling author David Farland taught dozens of writers who went on to staggering literary success, including such #1 New York Times Bestsellers as Brandon Mull (Fablehaven), Brandon Sanderson (Wheel of Time), James Dashner (The Maze Runner) and Stephenie Mayer (Twilight).
Dave was an award-winning, international best-selling author with over 50 novels in print, and a tireless mentor and instructor of new writers. His book Million Dollar Outlines is a seminal work teaching authors how to create a blueprint for a novel that can lead to bestseller success.
In this book, Dave teaches how to analyze an audience and outline a novel to appeal to a wide readership. The secrets found in his unconventional approach will help you understand why so many of his authors went on to prominence.
David Farland was hailed as “The wizard of storytelling” and one of the best writing instructors in the field for many years. Dave passed away in January 2022, but WordFire Press is pleased to bring this vital resource back to a wider readership.

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Outlines-Writing-ebook/

What I love about books on the craft of writing, is that they get my mind working as I automatically try to apply the techniques I’m reading about to my current W.I.P., and it often takes my writing in new directions which I hadn’t imagined before. Million Dollar Outlines, by David Farland did this for me with, not one, but two books which I am currently working on. As all my Delilah Kickstarter campaign backers know, I am actively working on the research and outline for Sarah, Book 2 in my Women in the West adventure series, and this is the book I intended to try out Farlands methods with, but I found some of his advice needed to be applied to a story which I’m just finishing up.

By reading through the elements that Farland believed should go into your outline, I discovered some things that I knew my western time-travel romance adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw needed, but had neglected to consider as I flew through the writing during NaNoWriMo last year. If you were with me then, you will know that I had a partial working outline, which changed as events in my story veered from the path I had prepared, but mostly my fingers just flew over the keys at every opportunity, and I adjusted my outline accordingly, so there was little time to think about the purpose that each scene or chapter served besides moving my story from point A to point B. (Which is why, this year, I plan to be better prepared and I’m currently working on the outline for Sarah, so that I have a fully developed outline when November roles around.) So as I read this very informative book, which is packed chock full of useful writing advice, I saw places where the Rock Star story is lacking, and even though I’m well past the outlining stage with this book, I went back and did the checks to be sure my story was hitting all the proper beats, and it wasn’t. That’s why took the time for a developmental edit and do the revisions, and now, it is.

Of course, I also used this book to improve my outlining technique with Sarah, which was my original lol intent, keeping in mind that Million Dollar Outlines is a book aimed at outlining to increase productivity. In order to do that, Farland begins by asking, and answering, questions such as ” Why do we read or crave stories?”, or “What is a story and how does it work?”. Then he has you take a look at the shape of your story.

With Sarah, I already knew that the shape of her story would be similar to that of Delilah, because they are both in the same series. Delilah was my first novel and a huge experiment where I tried many different methods and styles, but my method of creating a partial outline and revising as I go seems to have stuck with me with The Rock Star & The Outlaw, so I had planned to stick with it on Sarah.

According to Farland’s theory, that will no doubt make Sarah linear in style with numerous obstacles and hurtles to overcome along the way, because like Delilah, Sarah will embark on a hero’s journey as an unwilling traveler turned heroine. I use this method because it offers me some direction to get the story started, but also allows flexibility because my stories rarely end up going where I start out thinking they are headed.

Next, Farland has us look at the potential for a best selling story and how to analyze your audience to better create stories that readers will like. This is not something which I would normally think about when outlining, but it is something that every author should think about if the end goal is to sell what we write, and what better time to think about this step, than during the outlining process?

Farland also talks about the elements of story, such as setting, characters, conflict and treatment. Normally, I write out a scene out starting with the character interaction which moves the story forward, then I go back and fill in the descriptions to bring the setting to life, so his suggestion to develop the settings in the outlining process, would be a very different approach for me. By outlining in this way, I can see the potential to have most of the pieces to my story in place in my outline where I could almost pluck them from the outline and place them into the story, like pieces to a jigsaw puzzle.

Regarding characters, had a good start with Sarah because her character was at least partially developed in Delilah. In addition, I had a pretty good idea of who my supporting characters were going to be, and their parts in the story because they are either historical characters, which I took certain liberties with. So, all I had to do with them was to develop them more, giving each a physical description and a part in the book. In addition to Sarah, members of her Ute Indian family also made brief appearances in Delilah, so they just needed to be fleshed out a bit. And then there are the two characters who two of my supporters in the Delilah Kickstarter campaign got the privilege of naming which needed to be fully developed.

Once I knew who my characters were and the role that each would play, I had a basic outline of events written out, because you can’t know what role a character will play until you figure out what they do in the story. But this is my list of main/supporting characters.

• Sarah – protagonist – red hair and freckles – 17 – raised in bordello, traveled with Delilah until she was abducted and sold to the Utes, who treated her well & she was happy with. She strives for self-reliance and learns healing from the old Ute woman, Flies like a Heron, becoming a valuable member of the tribe.
• Three Hawks – love interest – Sarah’s Ute husband- kind to Sarah, but brave warrior- son on tribal elder, will one day be chief.- traded many horses for Sarah and fights to keep her.
• Flies Like a Heron – healer & mentor – kind old woman & wife of Ute shaman, Raven Wings – teaches Sarah healing ways
• Owoz Crebo – Antagonist – lone Sioux warrior who visits Ute camp guised as a friend, but steals away with Sarah in the night – an outcast of his own tribe – old & scarred
• Lillian Alura Bennett – Temptress – red haired Irish Woman who runs boarding house/ bordello in Glenwood Springs – was orphaned and became a ‘crib girl’, then worked her up until she made a spot for herself in one of the better houses, the bought out the madame – kind offers Sarah a room in exchange for her domestic services.
• Kate Elder – mentor – historical character – independent prostitute, on her own since young, companion to Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday – came to Glenwood Springs in his last days & cared for him, kind of ‘the woman behind the man’s – kind, helps Sarah, takes care of Doc

This is my list of settings which will need to developed. I’ve done a lot of research on the history of Glenwood Springs, but the rest must come from within my own head, but a few back woods excursions may be in order to get a feel for the terrain.

• Ute camp – already partially developed from Delilah.
• Cliffs where Indian battle takes place
• Mountains between Telluride and Glenwood Springs
• Glenwood Springs, 1887 – a. Glenwood Hotel/ Docs room & Fictional boarding house

Farland goes on to offer up plotting tools, which can be used in the construction of your story to hit the emotional beats that will grasp your readers and won’t let go. He suggests tools such as timebombs, dilemmas, crucibles, reversals, revelations, twists, motivations, mystery, romance, varying emotions, gads, braiding conflicts, varying conflicts, identity conflicts, centering, doubling, haunting, tripling, stacking, growth, duality, the third alternative, the rule of threes, spectacles, adding a thematic line, placing your world in jeopardy, or creating an epic. I’ve used a few of these, such as the rule of threes, twists, revalations, and reversals, but others were new to me. I bet you see a few tools in the list above which could use some explanation. I know there were for me.

We all know what a twist is, when the story suddenly takes off in an unexpected direction, or a revelation, where your characters reveal something about themselves which bears on their actions in the story. The Rule of Threes says that you should call something that you want readers to notice three different times throughout the story, if you want it to stick in your readers head. I’ve used that one in every story that I’ve written. Doubling, tripling and haunting are all methods of doing just that. Some, like placing the world in jeopardy, may work better for certain genres more than others, but it is always a good way to raise the stakes in the story. I used this one in my science fantasy series, still in progress, Playground for the Gods, which centers on a group of beings who destroyed their own planet and come to Earth to make their new home, but some members threaten to repeat their peoples mistakes and destroy Earth as well. This particular tale is also an epic, so there’s another plotting tool used to create story.

Then, Farland goes on to discuss the plotting process, talking about what makes a good beginning, middle and end and incorporating it all into your outline. I’m busy working right now, incorporating some of Dave Farlands suggestions into my outline for Sarah.

I have a more detailed outline right now for Sarah than I ever had for any story, and it still looks like it will be too short. I’ll have to go back and see what other plotting tools I may I want to ascertain that book 2 in my Women in the West series will be even better than book 1.

Will it be a million dollar outline? Not in the sense in which Farland was using it. He used his outlines to sell his stories to publishers and producers. For Sarah, I am both author and producer, but maybe the story will sell enough copies to make a million. I’ll just have to wait and see. I hope you’ll stick around until Sarah comes out in 2024 to see the end results, too.

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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; and book 1 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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