Before we get into writing the actual novel, we need to establish a few things.

First up, what is this story about? In this case, I’m trying to come up with a one- or two-sentence description of the story, not a full plot summary.

Second, where does this story take place? This should be a breakdown of all the key points needed to flesh out a setting (where, when, how). Actual physical location tells us the climate, the style of architecture, basic laws of physics. Time period informs more about architecture/technology level as well as clothing/fashion. Tone or genre is an aspect of setting that can get lost or become a nebulous descriptor, but it informs a lot about the availability of technology or magic, what kind of weather or climate we might be dealing with, and even more about architecture and fashion. Every aspect of setting needs to be taken into account.

Third, who is this story about? I want brief character bios with names, ages, general appearance, and at least one defining character trait.

Once I’ve established those three things, the fourth step is to put them together and figure out more about who my characters are and how they would interact with the world I’m putting them into.

Only then, when I fully understand my world, my characters, and the overall story I’m trying to tell, will I take the step of creating an actual outline.

So let’s go through the first three steps.

First, the basic overview, one or two sentences.

“After the global spread of a highly-infectious bio-weapon, mankind has been split into three groups: more than half have devolved into animalistic beasts, while about a fifth of the population are now gifted with strange abilities and have gained the derogatory nickname ‘Shatter-Eyes’. The remaining pockets of ‘pure’ humans have built bastions of safety across the ruins of the world they once knew, each with differing levels of trust and fear for the Shatter-Eyes seeking oases of their own.“

What do we learn from this breakdown? We get that there are three distinct groups to be aware of, that one of the groups is bestial and two are sapient, that there is mistrust of one of the sapient groups, and that there are multiple settlements. We also learn that this is a post-apocalypse, which leads us into step two.

Our basic setting is an alternate Earth, North America, post-modern apocalypse. Due to failing infrastructure, the tech level of this world has shifted. I like to use the tech levels from GURPS (a tabletop RPG system) because they’re very easy to follow and clearly quantified. Using that system, the world pre-apocalypse was at TL 7-8 (computers, space travel), and post-apocalypse has dropped to TL 4-6 (printing, gunpowder, radio, combustion engines). I’ve decided this story should take place about fifteen years after the exposure. I also know from my overview that there are settlements in this world populated and operated by a mix of unmutated humans and Shatter-Eyes, the mutated humans with abilities. I have ideas about specific settlements where we will spend a lot of time (primarily a floating village built on the center of a lake, safe from the devolved human creatures and very difficult to raid) but we’ll talk more about those later.

Time for my favorite part: character work!

As I said, at this point what’s important is the most basic bio for each primary character, but these characters are already fairly well-established because I’m pulling them from a previous draft so these are going to be a bit more detailed. I’m not going to list out anybody other than my two main characters, because for now nobody else is important enough to have a big enough impact on the story to need to be fully sorted out this early on. Another thing that I’m going to do here is that I’m not going to name these characters yet, even though they absolutely do have names, because the names aren’t important yet.

Character A: Female (she/her), late 20s early 30s, dark brown hair, blue/hazel eyes, Mediterranean heritage. She was a teenager when the bio-weapon was released, and she was unaffected/remained unmutated. She became the apprentice of a surviving medical practitioner (doctor, surgeon, or veterinarian) and after her mentor’s death took over as the medical care provider for her settlement; as such, she is highly valued and does not have much in the way of freedom. She is highly compassionate but also highly jaded and practical, which drives her to attempt to provide treatment to every person or creature she is able to reasonably assist, but she is aware of the difficulty in obtaining anesthetics or pain medication and does not shy away from performing procedures she believes her patients can get through without such medications. Unlike many in her settlement, her compassion extends to the Shatter-Eyes and she has befriended those who have been permitted to live in the settlement. She believes there is no meaningful distinction between the Shatter-Eyes and ‘normal’ humans (beyond the obvious), and believes those who do are superstitious bordering on barbaric.

Character B: Male (he/him), early to mid 30s, black hair, ‘Shatter-Eyes’ with various greens at differing levels of saturation, Western European heritage. The release of the bio-weapon led to four excruciating years of mutation, during which certain abilities began to present and certain physical changes took place. His obvious mutations caused a great deal of suspicion and mistrust within communities he joined; he was frequently rejected and isolated, especially when others discovered the nature of his abilities. He travels alone and fears discovery, as in his experience it leads to rejection. He claims his power is psychic command of insects, or of simple reptiles/amphibians, or of small mammals, depending on the situation; this control, however, extends to larger mammals up to and including humans and fully overrides the commanded creature’s natural survival instincts (i.e., he is capable of forcing any complex-minded creature into a situation that may directly lead them to harm or even death without the opportunity to resist). He has used this ability on a human being only once, accidentally, and when he released his hold he was nearly beaten to death. He has spent the intervening years suppressing this ability.

Now that I understand my characters and their motivations, I can determine a few things about the world that might inform the plot. For example, Character A is compassionate and has a soft spot for Shatter-Eyes, while Character B is a lonely, reticent Shatter-Eye who wishes to be accepted, therefore Character A would likely become protective over Character B. However, Character A is also very practical, so if Character B were to hide from her (for an extended time) how dangerous his abilities can be, she is not likely to continue to protect him. Therefore, if Character B becomes sufficiently attached to and trusting of Character A, he is likely to be vulnerable with her and reveal the extent of his abilities, at which point Character A would have to decide whether or not to protect him given that he is obviously intensely dangerous, but he has done nothing wrong and fears his own power. This is a pretty good place to start developing some conflict.

With all this laid out, we can start to work on an outline.