The Agenda Method

This is an amalgamation of several outlining methods that basically say the same thing. This one is for those of us who like planning and outlining, surely not for the improvisers! It’s also most applicable to stories with clear journeys or steps to take, such as adventures, quests, and mysteries.

The idea is simple.

• Put yourself into the shoes of your hero
• And plan your way towards reaching your goal

It’s like a vacation. You have to plan where you want to go and when you leave. You need to consider which items you want to take with you, what things you need to check or prepare, which people are coming with you (and maybe you’d need to pick them up on your way to the airport).

Some people literally buy an agenda for this and fill it as if they were the hero planning their day. Some use a corkboard or whiteboard, some use sticky notes, some use even more specific methods for collecting and connecting information.

But the idea remains the same. While writing this story, you pretend to be the main character(s). You plan their day. You write down their worries, goals or other notes. If they’re researching a mystery, you are researching that mystery, with every clue or potential lead pinned to a corkboard.

Whenever stuck, ask yourself what you would want to do now. Look over the “evidence” on that corkboard of yours, and see what sticks out: that’s the next lead your hero will chase. Look at the next eventful day in your agenda: tell a scene from that moment.

Examples

Literal Journey

The simplest example is a story with an actual journey. Your hero needs to travel somewhere to fetch some magical item? Plan the journey.

Grab that agenda, or post-its, and plan everything you need.

• Well, I’d want a character who can help with X, and another character who can help with Y.
• I need these objects for survival / fast travel / defeating possible monsters
• I need to consider this and that.
• Oh, maybe it’d be interesting to visit this place along the way. If we’re there, you know.

Plan the journey as if you were actually taking that trip tomorrow, and you really wanted to prepare well and make no mistakes.

Romance

Now an example that is perhaps harder to see. Let’s say you write a romance, two people who meet and fall in love. Then keep two agendas: one for each.

What would be in the agenda?

• They’d plan their normal day. (Most people meet simply because of work, or traveling home from work, or they’re doing groceries, or whatever. Romances are about falling in love with another person, so it’s common to show who that person is in their daily life.)
• And they’d plan steps to progress the relationship. They propose a date. They propose doing something together. They propose a date to look at new apartments, because maybe they want to move in together. One of them plans to visit the flower shop to get a gift for the other. One of them takes a detour to buy the favorite food of the other.

Think about how these characters would fill their days. This gives great insight into their character, but also many ideas for plot. Now you can pick the most exciting, fun or interesting moments (out of the many you’ve made up) and tell the story using those.

Now write!

Write a story this way!

I … have nothing more to add. The explanation above says everything. Pretend to be in your hero’s shoes, plan their days and keep notes as if you were them, really immerse yourself in their world. Out of the mountain of details and events you uncover, pick the best ones and lead your plot through those.