You must have created a Story before creating outlines.
If you haven't created any stories yet, learn how to do that here.
In this article, learn about how you can manage outlines on Quillry.
To do this, we need to understand some key concepts about the intersection of
templates, outlines, and plot points because
these concepts work hand-in-hand.
About Outlines
Outlines are locked to a Story.
All Stories you create receive a copy of the 3 Act structure outline to get you started.
A Story can have many outlines. You are not limited to one, or even one type of outline.
Outlines contain a series of plot points
which ultimately define the
structure.
Outlines cannot be set to public. They are private to you.
Outlines do not have a type.
Outlines do not have a genre.
Outlines can be but don't have to be created from a template.
If you create an outline from a template,
you recieve a private copy of the plot points
from that template. Your outline inherits that data so you don't have to recreate
the plot point definitions.
Changes are not bidirectional.
This means that when you make an Outline based off a Template,
if the plot points in the template change (plot points are added, edited, or deleted),
that outline that inherited from that template will not receive those updates.
Also, it means that if you add, edit, or delete plot points from the Outline,
those changes are not reflected in the Template the outline was sourced from.
Exmaple #1: You create a template with plot points, then create an outline from that template,
then later you add more plot points to the Template,
the outline does not receive those new plot points.
Example #2: You create a template with plot points,
then create an outline from that template,
then later add more plot points to the Outline,
the template does not receive those new plot points.
If you create an outline that wasn't made from a Template, you can export it to your Templates.
About Plot Points
A plot point is a significant moment in a book or story that impacts a character or characters, or the direction of the story.
A plot point occurs at a specific point in time within the story.
For example, "Turning Point One" or "Pinch Point One", which is a plot point within ACT ONE of the classic 3-Act Structure, typically occurs around 25% through the story
and signifies the end of ACT ONE propelling the reader and audience into ACT TWO.
Plot Points and the defined point at which they occur are used to calculate word counts.
Plot Points have three required fields:
A Title,
A description, and
A numeric value that represents the percent of the book at which the plot point occurs.
The point at which the plot point occurs in story is called percent of the book, and must be between 1 and 100 (a plot point cannot exist beyond 100% of the book's total word count.)
There are three ways to create an outline.
From your My Outlines page.
Within a specific Story from the story details page.
By clicking the Create Outline button from a Template details page.
Creating Outlines from My Outlines
The following video demonstrates how to create an outline from My Outlines.
In this video, you will notice:
The create Outline form has a dropdown for your stories because Outlines are locked to stories. So you must have a story first before creating an outline.
Although you have a dropdown of your Templates, you are not required to make a template or select one to create an outline.
After you've created your outline, you're navigated to the Outline details page and there are no plot points generated in the plot point grid.
The following video demonstrates how to create an outline from My Outlines using a template.
In this video, you will notice:
The create Outline form has a dropdown for your stories because Outlines are locked to stories. So you must have a story first before creating an outline.
After selecting a Template
from the dropdown and we navigated to the Outline details page,
plot points were automatically generated for you with word counts.
How did Example #2 work?
A Story has an estimated total word count goal while a Plot Point has a defined space in which the moment occurs within the story (i.e. 25%).
Using that information, Quillry caclulates the approximate word count the plot point should consume in your story.
Example: You set the story target word count to be 100,000 words. Plot Point B is defined to occur at 25% through the book.
Therefore, Plot Point B should be around 25,000 words into your story.
Creating Outlines from A Story
The following video demonstrates how to create an outline from a specific Story details page using a template.
In this video, you will notice:
When on a Story page, we see a grid of all the Outlines locked to that story.
In this example, we had two outlines already created for one story before making a third.
There was no Story dropdown in the create outline popup because we were already on a specific story page so the outline was going to locked to that story.
After selecting a Template
from the dropdown and we navigated to the Outline details page,
plot points were automatically generated for you with word counts.
Creating Outlines from A Public Template
The following video demonstrates how to create an outline from a public template.
In this video, you will notice:
When going to My Templates we clicked a button that said: Browse Templates
which navigated us to a page where we could see all the public templates that had been created.
We selected one, were navigated to the public template's page, reviewed the plot points, then clicked Create Outline From Template
which launched a popup.
This popup had no title, or description fields. The only option was a dropdown of your stories. Once you select a story and click save,
an outline is generated for that story using the information from the template including the title, description, and all of its plot points.
This represents a private copy of the public template for you to customize.
After selecting a Template
from the dropdown and we navigated to the Outline details page,
plot points were automatically generated for you with word counts.
Creating Outlines from A Private Template
The following video demonstrates how to create an outline from a private template.
In this video, you will notice:
When going to My Templates we did not click the Browse Templates button.
We selected one of our private templates,
were navigated to the public template's page, reviewed the plot points, then clicked Create Outline From Template
which launched a popup.
This popup had no title, or description fields. The only option was a dropdown of your stories. Once you select a story and click save,
an outline is generated for that story using the information from the template including the title, description, and all of its plot points.
This represents a private copy of the template for you to customize.
After selecting a Template
from the dropdown and we navigated to the Outline details page,
plot points were automatically generated for you with word counts.
Except for clicking Browse Templates and going to the public template page, the process was the
same for creating outlines between public and private templates.
An error has occurred. This application may no longer respond until reloaded.
Reload🗙