Important note before we start:
I suggest using a notepad and pen and jotting down ideas. Stephen King says to never write down your ideas in a notebook because they are probably bad ideas. I don’t agree with this. Up to you, really.
You will find the notepad useful when brainstorming and ideas are flying about like mad. It is also useful for penning characters, as ideas (such as secrets) get exposed when we think deeply about a character. When I say, deep, I mean basic stuff. Appearance, age, DOB, the reason for...
I always jot down rough ideas with my other books -- usually just a few words as I worked through the book. This system works for a pantser like myself. The most important thing I have noticed when working from notes is when I write them down, the floodgates open on what comes next.
This is the reason I would like you to start with a pen and a notepad, even the yellow legal pad is fine. I use a cheap $1 pad from the dollar store over here. When we first pen down information we are working blind, trying to build something. It's a rough draft. When we enter it into Scrivener, new thoughts will pop up and new ideas will grow instantly. Sometimes. It does for me.
Another point is that many writing instructors say you must have the entire story in your head, characters, arch, start, and end, before you can write a book. What a load of shit. Excuse my language. Until I devised this stage (planning) I always started with a title and went from there. Let me stress here, to work with this how-to book, you don't need an idea fully developed or nearly developed to use this system. I have no idea what I am going to write. Let's work through that together.
The Seven Point Book System
There are several schools of thought on how books are created. The 3 Act is the most popular, and one I usually stick with using. It is very basic:
ACT 1: Setting and Conflict
ACT 2: MC struggles to succeed and fails.
ACT 3: Resolution and MC growth (in failure or success).
As I said, it is very basic, a little too basic to be blunt. In each act, one needs to add several points and sub-points. Something like this:
ACT 1: Opening
a: town
a-1: setting
a-2: location/s
b: Build up
b-1: something
b-2: something else
c: character
c-1: MC
c-2: Relations
c-3: Antagonist
Then we look at ACT 2 and then ACT 3, pretty much adding slight changes to the above example.
This system is very easy to implement. However, I don't feel it is good enough. Above I said I use the 3 ACT system, and I do, but not as detailed as listed above. Before, I was a pantser (discovery writer), making it up as I went. I wrote the story as it unfolded in my head.
The basic book layout looks aka The Book system, looks something like this (7 points):
A: Opening
B: Meet Hero
C: Something happens
D: Hero reacts
E: Hero accepts the situation
F: Hero changes
G: Hero overcomes the obstacle
For this book I am writing, Titled Wolf-Book 1: The Alpha, I will be using a different system. I will not be discovery-writing this book. It will be planned and outlined. And I will keep nothing hidden and show everything, including pictures.
Stay tuned.