Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

The Thread Outline

The Thread Outline

Once the climax is written, that is the end of phase 1 of the Exploratory Writing Workshop. The students can sigh with relief. Now what remains is to write the Thread and Comprehensive Outlines in the last two weeks of the course.

The Thread Outline begins with learning how to move images around. Before the actual writing starts the student needs some visual imagery. For openers there will be images of the Central and supporting characters. Then there will be an image for the overall work. For extra credit are images like illustrations in a book. These images are for the benefit of the writer at this juncture.

I have this theory that it is possible to trick your subconscious with vivid imagery in your imagination. That your main operating system doesn’t know the difference between imagined images and actual images…. That reality to your bio processor can come from either source and if your computer thinks something is reality, it reacts viscerally and when a writer feels something at the gut, the spirit of what he/she writes get etched and captured on the medial being produced.

Have you ever seen a child walk out of a movie still caught up in the euphoria of the story. Have you ever found yourself, hours later still under the sway of a book or movie? How much evidence do you need?

After the images are taken care of the rest of the template will be devoted to organizing the vignettes into a core concept. Here will be shown:

Name of the Story
Author:
Dramatic Premise

Central Character:
Template
Prose synopsis

Want Need or Desire
Life Changing Event

Supporting Characters:
Template
Prose Synopsis

Synopsis of Story
Themes

Synopsis of each Vignette

Now this outline is the entry point for a more comprehensive and expanded version that follows in Assignment 8.