Explaning things is tough. After I wrote my blog post yesterday I realized I talked about every scene being a notecard, but failed to say what actually goes on each notecard. So here you are, an addendum!
First, I write a description of the scene at the top of the notecard. This can be detailed and exact, or something only I can interpret. For example, in my Junk Squad outline one of my scene descriptions is just "treadmill scene." As long as you know what you're talking about, you're fine.
Occasionally I don't know the details so I write vague skimmy things like this line from my Color Me Lovely outline: "They go out somewhere where A executes plot to take down M." Other times I really don't know what's going to happen, and I end up with lines like this one from my Tidal Wave outline: "Everything goes the fuck wrong."
Next I make a note of character motivations in the scene, what the conflict is, and what the scene advances. This helps when I actually start writing. Knowing the WHY of the scenes helps me change things about without breaking the outline to pieces. The outline will inevitably be a messy, shattered thing on the floor by the time I'm done, but it's nice to try and keep it coherent for as long as possible.
Point of view should be indicated in some way, and scenes can also be color coded for which subplot they relate to.
Finally, I make sure to write down what the disaster of the scene is. In order to keep the reader reading, every scene needs to end with something going wrong. If a scene ends on a 'happy enough for now,' then there isn't much motivation to keep going. Remeber to change up the scale of the disaster to reduce monotony. If everything is OH NOES THE END OF THE WORLD then the end of the world is going to get really boring. Give your reader a breather. It'll make the bigger disasters have more impact.
I sound like I know what I'm talking about or something. Now I'm going to destroy is all by yelling ORANGES and running away.
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