How to Write a “Story Outline”

Students, if we want our meetings to be effective, it would be best for everyone to bring a story outline. This outline doesn’t need to be highly professional; you just need to write out a story. The story should be narrated in a plain style, without literary descriptions—that means avoiding adjectives like “sitting very lonely,” “an extremely lively street,” or “painfully contemplating the future.” Whether a person is lonely should be expressed through details, sounds, light and shadow, or behavior; the liveliness of a street should be conveyed through specific scene descriptions and streetscapes; and concepts like “future” that cannot be visually seen should not appear in your story outline.

This story should first include: characters, time, place, what happened, what obstacles were encountered (these are the dramatic conflicts), how they resolved these obstacles, reached their goal, and completed the story. The so-called beginning, development, turn, and conclusion form the basic structure of a story. When dramatic conflicts appear in the story, it’s best to have several rounds before pushing the story toward its climax—don’t reach the goal too easily. From this, you can try to think about the structure of “Jaal Gedi,” even if it’s just a three-minute square dance. Does it follow: Beginning – story’s opening, setup; Development – middle, confrontation; Turn – continuation, escalation of conflict; Conclusion – climax, ending.

Mastering this rhythm is the structure of a screenplay (whether a feature or short film).

For any story, the best approach is to first find a good title, which serves as the direction of your story, and build good details around it. Film details are often convincing props. Everyone should think through the story, know its direction, and find the final ending. Only after determining the ending should you start writing the story outline. This way, you’ll know how to set up obstacles. All obstacles exist to prevent characters and plot from easily reaching the story’s conclusion, and these “obstacles” are your “plot points.” The more difficult the obstacles and the less likely their resolution seems, the more engaging the plot becomes, because you exceed the audience’s imagination. When you eventually resolve these obstacles, the audience will feel satisfied in their validation. Therefore, to satisfy the audience, your story and plot points must be engaging.

Any concept, even a good one, can become dangerous when it turns into an ideology, because it has no value for character development or fate. Whether a story is believable is primarily reflected in your plot design. If your story lacks subtle details and credible plot, audiences will never buy it, no matter how well your script is written. Due to students’ limited life experiences, try to start from your own life experiences: what has moved your friends, what has left the deepest impression on you, and why? What experiences do you most want to share with others? Thus, in a vivid detail, an emotional passage, or a moment, you capture a small story. Connecting these elements together, image by image, and writing them down—this is a good short film story outline.