Story on a Page or S.O.A.P. The brief guide on how to track your entire book on one page by Nicki Salcedo You are writing a book, and you need an easy way to summarize your ideas. Unfortunately, you can’t carry around your poster-sized storyboard or 10-page synopsis everywhere you go. Here’s a guide to putting your entire story on a page. Have your SOAP with you at all times so you can keep writing. List career Vital stats, archetypes 1 Secret that will be revealed in story Section 2: Goal, Motivation and Conflict 2 Initial Internal External Final internal Section 3: Conflicts Traits of hero and heroine that show that they are different Section 4: Common ground Traits of heroine or hero that show where they are compatible Section 5: Secondary Characters Other characters that move the story forward, make it more vivid, or have a brief but important impact Section 6: Scenes or Chapters Highlight the top 10 scenes or write a sentence for each chapter Section 7: Themes Write your theme, elevator pitch, high concept or blurb. Section 8: Progress You can use symbols (# ! $) to indicate stages of intimacy, hero’s journey, story arc, or subplots. See the next page for a sample SOAP. This table may bring order to your writing life or it can help you write out of order. There is no reason why you can’t write Chapter 14 first. Rearrange scenes and chapters as you go along. Don’t spend too much time on creating your SOAP. Use it to keep you focused and making progress on your novel.
1 The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines by Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, Sue Viders 2 Goal, Motivation and Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction by Debra Dixon |
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