This is K.M. Wayland.

and you are listening to the 474th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I've been working on the outline for Book 3 in my Dreamlander trilogy for many months now,

and I'm still working on the first act. That may

seem crazy at first until you realize most of my questions, notes, and ideas are actually

about stuff that happens in the second and third acts.

The beauty of outlining is that it allows you to figure out plot problems and causal

linearity before you ever start writing.

There will come a moment in my outlining of the first act

when suddenly all my work on the latter parts of the book

will come into focus and the events and questions of not just

the first act but the vast majority of the book will suddenly fall into place.

When I sit down to figure out the crucial scenes and chapters that will set up my story, I can only

make the most resonant decisions if I know what I'm setting up.

This is why I spend so much of the early outlining phase working on the second half of the book.

If I know where I'm going, I know better how to get there.

So that's just something to think about as you outline or edit your own stories. Remember the end is always in the beginning and

vice versa. And now I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast, the second and final part in

our series Learn five types of character

arc at a glance.

Today's episode is about the three negative arcs.

Stories are about change.

...