Writing Resources

(The second tab of the file includes a sample reverse outline for nonfiction, with examples from a book of advice on editing that I'm writing at the moment and which this post may become a chapter in. Exactly what columns you’ll want in a nonfiction reverse outline will depend on your overall structure. Narrative nonfiction and memoir use similar techniques as fiction and could benefit from the standard reverse outline.)

Column A: Chapter number and title, scene

Some writers make their reverse outlines chapter-by-chapter, but since each chapter can include multiple scenes, and each scene deserves TLC, let’s give each scene a row.

(My reverse outline sample is for one of my short story collections, so I've given the title of the short story instead of a chapter number. Again, the template is adaptable!)

Among other benefits, filling out this column shows if you've acquired two Chapter 20s by accident. Or if you've given some chapters too-similar titles. Or if one chapter has way more scenes, or way fewer, than any other—which isn’t necessarily a problem, just something to observe right now.

While I’m giving advice: using the “Heading” style to mark your chapter titles/numbers makes it easier to find things your manuscript. Headings get their own space in the Navigation toolbar that comes up when you hit “Control + F” in Microsoft Word or click the “Document Tabs” option in Google Drive.

Column B: Action summary

Write about what happens in the scene. How much detail to include depends on your personal taste and memory. You don’t want to crowd the box with information or take a very long time at this. But it can be useful to spell out not just what happens, but some of why it happens and what results. This helps you follow the chain of logic and spot where links might be weak or missing.

A quick example of how an action summary can include cause and effect: “Overhearing Jason’s phone call, Miranda begins to suspect he was involved in the murder. She confronts him, he denies everything, and he leaves the house and doesn’t come back that night.” If you feel comfortable with shorter action summaries, you might just write this as “Miranda confronts Jason about the murder. He leaves.”

If you're going to write a synopsis to query this novel to literary agents or publishers, the reverse outline can help you get started. (I made my first reverse outlines for synopsis-writing purposes, before adapting them for other uses as both a writer and a freelance editor.) It accomplishes the major step of turning a novel into a few pages. You’ll still need to edit those few pages into something shorter and smoother, and I'd write the actual synopsis after you've given the book a structural edit, since elements of the plot may change in the process!

Speaking of summary, if the action in the story draft is told in narrative summary rather than shown as it happens, it’s often helpful to make a note of this. Summary has its uses: it can convey a lot to the reader quickly and it adds variety to pacing. Whether you have too much narrative summary or too little is something to consider once you have the outline filled out.

Column C: Scene wordcount

Use words, not number of pages, because the same amount of words can fit on more or fewer pages with different formatting. In publishing and professional editing, there’s still the convention that 1 page = 250 words, but in my experience, 12-point Times New Roman font that’s double spaced often fits 300+ words onto a page.

Column D: Cumulative wordcount

I’ve entered a formula here to sum up column C to the current row. This gives you a sense of when each scene takes place on the scale of the story, and also how your pacing is. (You can click the corner of a cell and drag it down to extend the formula as you add more scenes.)

That's the simplest version.

If you just want to fill in the first three columns and let the formula fill out the fourth for you, that gives you a one-sheet "map" of your story that can make the full manuscript easier to navigate, and it can be sufficient to get started on evaluating your story. But you’re missing half the fun.

Column E: POV character

To avoid both reader and writer confusion, I recommend sticking to one POV per scene. Some editors and publishers insist on it. But if you want to risk omniscient POV, that can go here too.

This column reveals when POV changes and whose perspective we spend the most time in. In one story I’m working on, I've added notes in this column about alternative POVs I could narrate the scene from, if I decide to change things up in the second draft. You don’t need to divide POV equally among all your characters, even if you have multiple protagonists. However, if one POV evaporates from the story partway through, or one takes over a long stretch of chapters, it’s good to spot this. And readers may be distracted if you have one or two scenes that make atypical POV choices without clear reason.

Columns F and G: Location; Date and time

These may help you catch continuity errors, like if a character returns home from the same trip twice, a minor character is in two places at once, or a particular evening in August winds up way too busy.

Column G is especially helpful for stories that span a long time—or a very short time. Even if you don’t have exact dates, a note such as “three days after the previous scene” can help avoid logistical tangles. (When timeline is especially important to a story, some writers fill out a virtual or physical calendar with their story events. You can often get print calendars for the previous year cheaply at an office supply or stationary store in January/February.)

If your story takes place in a single location or timeline is not a big concern, you don’t need to use these columns—this reverse outline is always customizable!

Column H: Plot and subplots advanced

There’s a lot going on in a story, and often a lot going on at the same time. This column lets you track where and when different plotlines are developed. You may find it useful to label your plots and subplots with categories like “External” (dealing with the world around the protagonist), “Internal" (psychological change that drives character arcs), or “Interpersonal” (rivalry, romance, and more).

Column I: Conflict of the scene and character desires

Conflict doesn’t have to be violent or flashy. But stories generally include a goal and some friction that prevents the goal from being met. In this way, desire and conflict are often closely connected.

If nobody wanted things to change, there wouldn’t be much to write a story about. If everyone immediately got the change they desire, the story would be very short. Adding friction will make events feel more realistic and engaging to readers. Conflict creates suspense: if there are opposing forces, we can’t predict who will win (or how they’ll manage to win, even if we trust the story will end well for a character). Conflict also lets you explore multiple sides of a situation or theme.

Depending on how you fill out the action summary in Column B, you might cover much of this information there. But I suggest filling out Column I for at least a few scenes to get the hang of evaluating conflict and motivation. If these are missing, a scene can feel directionless and emotionally flat.

Splitting information across multiple columns can also prevent any one part of the outline from getting too swollen. Especially if you write long or action-packed scenes, you may find yourself writing a lot in each cell. A few solutions: one, you may prioritize only the most significant developments of each scene. You can always come back and add more information later. Two, you may realize a scene would work better as two shorter or simpler scenes. (Though don't do this just because it's busy in the outline: consider how the scene itself reads in the story.) Three, you may adapt the outline to give each scene multiple rows evaluating different elements. Just put the wordcount in column C as 0 for the added rows, and it won’t mess up the cumulative wordcount formula (I've given an example in the template).

If the protagonist does get what they want, you’ve either reached the happy ending of the story (or at least a subplot) or you need to give them something else to want, another itch to satisfy. Maybe solving one problem makes them realize there’s an additional problem. Or it’s a question of short-term vs long-term goals: Frodo has made it to Rivendell, but then he takes on the new goal of reaching Mordor.

Column J: Reader emotional response

One reason we write stories is because we want to make people feel things. Here’s where you can talk about what you want the reader to feel. This gives you ideas for what to punch up and enhance in revisions. If you want them to be sad, what is the line they’ll start crying on?If you want them to be hopeful, what should they hope for and why will they feel hope that it will happen?

You may update this column after getting beta reader feedback on an early draft (but not a first draft—the first draft is for you): where and how did your beta react? Was it the way you hoped for, or were there surprises? You could even ask your beta reader to fill out a version of this chart.

Column K: Questions raised or intensified

A powerful emotion to draw readers in is curiosity. And every story will involve some exposition and explanation as we learn about the characters, the setting, and the plotline. Some writers use the term Dramatic Question or Narrative Question to refer to the single biggest and most crucial question that keeps the story going. Once that single question is answered, the story wraps up. Others use the term Story Questions for the various mysteries on different scales that keep readers turning pages—and not just in mystery novels. Whatever you call them, you can track in this column the questions you expect readers to ask with each scene.

In general, when a question is answered, a new, larger or more intense one should take its place. Or the answer to a still-lingering question becomes more urgent. By the end of the story, the majority of questions are answered. You may include a sequel hook, and writers often leave some small, tantalizing details open-ended to make a story feel more realistic, more vivid, or more haunting—or because we don’t have space to chase down every loose end. But if your biggest questions aren’t resolved, the story doesn’t feel over.

I find story questions hugely exciting because curiosity is what most often sucks me in as a reader. But a story isn’t just an intellectual exercise. It’s fatal if a reader ever decides, “I don’t care about learning the answer to this question.” Make sure your other columns are providing reasons for readers to care (especially column J).

You don't want this column to be empty. But you may not want it to get too full, either. It’s possible to draw out a question for too long, leaving readers confused or frustrated. It’s also possible to raise too many questions to easily keep track of. If they’re asking too much and learning too little, some readers might give up on ever finding answers. So be sure to consider both new questions and the weight of the questions already hanging over the readers' (and characters') heads.

As for where to track the answers, it’s dealer’s choice—you could put them in this column, or the answers might be described as part of the action summary or another column. Use this outline in a way that matches how you think, since it's organizing your story.

This is another column it can be useful to ask your beta readers to fill out (or "What questions do you have at the end of this chapter?" could be something to ask them in another format.) You may be surprised by what piques your readers' curiosity!

To reiterate, the mysteries that draw a reader to the next page or chapter—or sentence—don't have to be big. Jack Hart’s guide to narrative nonfiction, Storycraft, provides two excellent examples of opening lines with tiny mysteries that hook you. Joan Didion begins a piece with “Imagine Banyan Street first, because Banyan Street is where it happened.” Right away we wonder: what is “it”? And where is Banyan Street? The second example was written by Spencer Heinz in the Oregonian: “Pat Yost was in bed when she heard the sound.” Most readers will give Heinz’s next few sentences their attention to learn what the sound was, and Yost’s vulnerability makes the question feel urgent. You can get a bit too obviously manipulative with tiny questions (so that the reader asks “For crying out loud, what is it now?”), but it’s a useful technique to keep in mind.

The other beauty of these questions is that they can make the need for exposition work for you. Rather than being bored to tears by an infodump, the reader is intrigued by hints and glimpses, then satisfied to receive more context and explanation.

Column L: New characters and concepts introduced

This column can help you pace your exposition and introductions. (It overlaps with the previous column, but different writers find different angles helpful for analyzing a story, so I’ve included both. You may not fill out this column for every chapter, especially shorter chapters or chapters later in the story.) Tracking this can prevent you from introducing the same person in two different scenes. It also reveals opportunities to energize any doldrums in the middle of your story by adding a new idea.

Column M: Notes (and whatever else you desire)

I use this column to make revision suggestions to myself. You can also use it to track elements you find important but which don’t fit in other columns. Again, please feel free to add more columns and delete ones that aren’t a priority for this story or your process!

Mystery writers may want a column to keep track of where clues or red herrings appear. Romance novelists may want to track beats. A kinky romance novelist may want to keep track of which toys the characters use in which sex scene. Other writers may want to track what Robert McKee calls the “value charge,” measuring how much closer to or farther from their goal a character has moved.

Using the Outline

You don't have to fill out the entire spreadsheet in one sitting. You might do a few chapters/scenes at a time. You might get one or two columns completely filled out in one go (I do columns A and C together) but take time to do the rest. Some columns may never get entirely filled out. My tip is to try every column to start with, because you never know what will make something click for you. It’s better to fill out half the columns than none.

Some authors create reverse outlines as they write the first draft. After completing each chapter, they end their writing session by filling out a row with a summary of what they’ve just written. This has the benefit of your memory being fresher, and if it sounds like it’d work for you, please try it! It may help you spot issues early and course correct. However, some authors find too much analysis paralyzing in the first draft stage. Personally, I find it easier and fun to do my outline at the end, in a sugar rush of triumphant celebration at finishing a story. I write it up, stand back dusting my hands, and go “Well, what do we have here?”

And what do we have here?

Things a reverse outline can reveal:

Where does your climax—the peak of suspense, intensity, and emotion—happen in the story? How close to the end? How do you build up to it and climb back down? Are there mini-climaxes earlier in the story to keep readers engaged? Your main plot will have a climax, and so will your subplots and your character arcs. These may be located in different places, or they may all climax together. (Stop snickering, you in the back!)

What’s left unresolved at the end of the book? (For traditional publication, you’ll have the best luck if your first book is a “standalone,” though it may have opportunities for a sequel if it sells well. You might think self-publishing is more forgiving, but in fact, readers may greet a cliffhanger ending with bad reviews if they feel you’re trying to trap them into buying more books for unclear payoff. They may even return the book and demand a refund. However, in both traditional and self-publishing, books later in a series may end in cliffhangers once the author has won readers’ trust by finishing earlier stories in a satisfying way.)

How do the character arcs develop? Anything important enough to write a story about will probably change a person—how are each character’s actions and desires different at the end of the story than they were at the beginning?

How long are questions left unanswered or conflicts left unresolved? You generally want these to last for at least a few chapters to let suspense grow and keep the story flowing. (The author Benjamin Percy, in Thrill Me, speaks of his failed early novels: “I treated chapters like short stories, introducing and resolving trouble in fifteen pages. The containment, the stand-aloneness of my chapters, gave my books a stop-start quality that destroyed any sense of momentum.”) At the same time, each scene should make a little progress, whether positive or negative. It will end with the character a little better off or worse off (or better in some ways, worse in others) than they were before.

Friction, tension, conflict, and struggle make a story richer and more vivid. Even for small and simple goals, let the readers and characters yearn just a bit before you give them what they want. Make sure your payoffs each have setup.

Do you have scenes without action? Or where the action is all internal rather than external: does your protagonist sit around thinking until they change their mind about something? This isn’t fatal—I’ve done it myself on occasion. But try not to make these static scenes too frequent (and internal action is better than no action at all: beware scenes that are pure exposition).

Do you have scenes that are overgrown transitions, moving characters from Point A to Point B? In particular, you have an overgrown transition rather than a proper scene when there aren’t enough questions, conflict, stakes, urgency, or emotional engagement. Make your story more vivid by fleshing out these transitions or removing them (a transition can often become a paragraph or sentence at the beginning of the next scene).

Do any significant events happen off-page or between scenes? Would it be clearer or more impactful for readers if they happen on-page?

Do you spend a lot of wordcount introducing a particular character, setting, or detail that doesn’t go on to play a significant role in the story? Be wary of one-offs: characters, POVs, locations, and apparent subplots that only appear once may be a sign you should develop them further—or take them out entirely. Not always! But make sure it’s clear to readers why you break your story’s pattern. Sometimes, an author will give a character one flashback scene to share backstory. However interesting the backstory, be sure the events of that flashback are relevant to their present-day storyline!

How does each scene fit into to the larger story? How do the subplots connect to each other? If something doesn’t connect, does it belong? Can you flesh it out and connect it more? (Whether you connect it more tightly or delete it often depends on if your story is longer or shorter than you want it to be—see next section.)

You can color-code rows by subplot if that makes things easier for you. The reverse outline can become a very visual document, helping you see things it’s harder to find in a manuscript of text.

Look at scenes that only advance a single plot or subplot, and see how strong they are in the other columns. One way to punch up a sagging scene is to combine it with a second scene and do two things at once. Maybe the scene in which Miranda overhears Jason’s suspicious phone call is also the scene where she reels from the revelation that she’s about to be fired from her dream job (which she learned in the previous chapter). As our friend writing at the Cincinnati Enquirer in February 1947 said, “Life is just one damn thing after another, is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.”

Do tensions and stakes rise over the course of the story? This is often phrased as “things have to get worse and worse for your characters,” but that isn’t the only option. Giving your characters an occasional “break” provides hope, which, for you literary sadists, gives characters more to lose when things get worse again. Hope raises the stakes. And building a character up lets you continue a story for longer because it gives them farther to fall. The occasional achievement can give your character new abilities and resources to make future scenes exciting. Also, alternating hope with loss or disappointment creates a variety in tone and texture; most readers find variety welcome. (This also means you should beware of too many scenes of unmitigated success, even if your story's tone is one of cozy wish fulfillment.) In some genres, both your character and your audience may need occasional injections of hope to be motivated to see the story through. There are exceptions—a short horror novel may be nothing but things getting worse—but overall, don’t worry that you’re failing at suspenseful storytelling if your characters are sometimes happy! But there still should be something missing, an unanswered question, an unachieved goal, or an unresolved risk that keeps the story going. And generally, these risks, goals, questions, and unfulfilled desires should get bigger as the story goes on.

How's the length of your story?

Some writers end up with first drafts way longer than they want. Some wind up with first drafts that are too short. For some authors, each story causes them wordcount-related stress in a different way. And in every manuscript, whatever its overall length, some scenes will go on a bit longer than they need to, while several character details and plot threads will tantalize with their ability to be developed further.

Too long/too short is also a question of the audience you’re writing for. Young adult novels tend to be shorter than adult historical epics. If you’re writing fiction to publish in magazines paying pro rates, you'll often have a better short with a 4,000-word short story than a 9,000-word novelette. And if you don’t intend to write a novella (I love them, but they can be tricky to sell), then a 40,000-word “novel” probably needs more development.

If your story or scene is too long, either:

Too much is happening

You’re giving too many details about what’s happening

(It may be both at once, of course.)

You’ll want to make changes in that order: first, decide what needs to happen in the story. As I advised earlier, making some of it happen simultaneously can reduce the number of scenes and make each scene more intense. But upon consideration, and with the help of your reverse outline, you may find one or two excess subplots. Save them for a different story.

Once you’ve reduced your number of scenes, if you’re still longer than you want, look at each scene and tighten paragraphs and lines. But that fine-tuning is something to work on later, in the line-editing rather than organization or structural edit (what I'm calling the second draft in this post, and which we editors also call developmental editing).

If your story is too short, either:

Not enough is happening

You’re not giving enough details about what is happening

Should you add a subplot, or draw out a subplot you currently have? Do the characters’ problems get resolved too quickly? Have you raised enough narrative questions? Given enough answers? Is the conflict strong enough and are the stakes high enough? Have you shown how high the stakes are? Look at where you’ve used narrative summary. Would any of this be more interesting or dramatic as a scene? Are there sentences you could expand to paragraphs, or paragraphs into chapters? Don’t pad the story, but flesh it out.

You may want to do more research, especially if you put research aside to complete your first draft (which you've done—congratulations!) Learning about your characters’ jobs, the world they inhabit, and processes within it can open up lots of avenues, many of which you wouldn’t have predicted.

Or you may write short because you know so much about the story. You’ve been developing this magic system since you were in high school, so you don’t realize how weird and wondrous it is to your readers and how much they’d enjoy a (vivid, active, non-lecture) tour of it. Now’s the time to add some more scenes of your protagonist learning to use magic! Or, switching genres, a mystery writer may have meticulously planned the crime—but they need to add enough description that the reader can follow the logistics.

The emotions of revision

Personally, I think adding more scenes and details is great fun. You get to write fanfiction of your first draft—and publish it! However, expanding a story can take time and requires you to keep track of what you’re doing. The record in the reverse outline will help with that.

Cutting scenes, plot threads, characters, and even favorite sentences can be melancholy. I encourage writers to save what they cut in case it can fit in a future story—even if it doesn’t, this feels less like a final execution. However, sometimes cutting something is a relief. You’ve had a feeling that element wasn’t working out, and now you can let it go.

Some writers may get a little too eager to cut. It might seem like the easy way out, but if you delete everything that causes you trouble, the story will get smaller and smaller, and it might wind up less interesting as a result. You’re also depriving yourself of the chance to stretch your creativity and try new things. (Mary Oliver in A Poetry Handbook warns that “deletion teaches nothing.”) It’s a judgment call: does this troublesome bit have enough potential that it’s worth rescuing through revision? Try sleeping on it in case your subconscious offers a new solution you hadn’t expected. If that doesn’t pan out, you can always save the idea to try again in a different story. As Matthew Salesses says in Craft in the Real World, “Some encouragement (hopefully)! The bulk of successful writing is in the fact that you have an endless number of tries. Persistence is key.”

To wrap up, a few more uses of reverse outlining:

Reread your story in light of the outline. Going between the outline and each scene, consider this question: does your outline describe what’s actually on the page or what you intended to write? If your outline is more wishful than actual, that's still progress: it's helped you express your intentions, which is a step that brings them closer to reality. Now the reverse outline has become a planning outline for your next draft.

Similarly, some authors find it tricky to revise existing scenes. Instead, they write the second draft more or less from scratch in a new file. They trust their memory to give them back the best parts of the stroy and to drop or rework what wasn’t succeeding. If you want to use this approach but still need some guidance, the reverse outline can be made into a new outline.

You can reverse outline other people’s books! It's fun and insightful to examine how a favorite author works on a scene-by-scene level. Heck, it can also give insight into how an author you can’t stand, but who is undeservedly successful, works on a scene-by-scene level. Maybe you can learn from their success after all.

Check: Is Your Plotline a PLOT line?

At this point, I feel it's important to take a pit stop and have you check that your plotlines are indeed plot lines. Just because you have external things happening from beginning to end, or a relationship that gets showcased through two acts, or societies that are standoffish to each other, doesn't mean you have a plot for those things.

In order for it to be a plot, it needs at minimum these four things:

- An objective (a want/goal)

- An antagonist (something in the way of, or rather, opposing that objective)

- Conflict (these forces actually clash in a struggle)

- Consequences (the outcome of the conflict matters because it changes the future)

If it doesn't have those, it may be interesting for a time, but it's not really a plot.

Do yourself a huge favor and put those things in place. It will save you massive headaches and rewrites later.

Other than those four things, the next most important element to have in a plotline is plot turns.

Plot Turns

A plot turn is also called a "plot point" or a "turning point," so we have three terms for the same element (don't you love terminology in the writing community?). It turns the direction of the story. The story was going one way, and then information is revealed or an action is taken and the story is now going a new way.

I like to use the metaphor of a railroad to explain it. Simplistically speaking, your protagonist is a train engine pursuing an objective, on a railroad. The tracks lay down a pathway, a trajectory, to get there. A plot turn (or plot point or turning point) is like that train track that switches the direction of the train. The character was on trajectory A, but is now on trajectory B. 

You can learn more about plot points here.

In 3-Act structure, there are four major turning points, one for each quarter of the story. They make up these "climactic" peaks:

Depending on what structural approach you use, they may have different names. We are going to call the first peak "Plot Point 1," the second peak the "midpoint," the third peak "Plot Point 2," and the final peak the "climax."

If you use Save the Cat!, these are known as the following . . . 

Plot Point 1 = "Break into Two"

Midpoint = Midpoint

Plot Point 2 = "All is Lost"

Climax = the high point of "Finale."

If you use The Hero's Journey, these are known as the following . . . 

Plot Point 1 = "Crossing the Threshold"

Midpoint = . . . actually, this peak isn't labeled in The Hero's Journey, so . . . yeah.

Plot Point 2 = "The Ordeal"

Climax = "The Resurrection"

And other approaches flesh this all out differently. But just know this is the most common basic structure--there should be a major plot turn every quarter of the story. 

. . . this is, of course, for the main plotline, but it should also almost always be the case for any throughlines as well.

These major plot points are going to be major scenes. Some in the writing community like to call them "tentpole scenes," because they hold up the story. Everything else is the fabric in between. Everything else works as the falling action or rising action between these tentpoles (simplistically speaking--we could break this all down more, but let's not do that).

Another metaphor that can be helpful (which I hesitate to include, because mixing metaphors is rarely a good idea) is to think of the major plot points as "destinations," and the scenes in between as the "journeys" to those destinations (this is a concept I learned from Dramatica).

From there, we have a few ways to handle plotlines and plot points.

Overlapping Plotlines & Plot Points

It's common to have plotlines and plot points overlap. This is when the "journeys" and "destinations" happen in the same scenes (though their outcomes may be drastically different).

Because the vast majority of stories include the protagonist's internal plotline as well as her external plotline, these two almost always overlap. The character tries to satisfy an abstract want (internal) by pursuing a concrete goal (external). As antagonists challenge the protagonist, how she chooses to respond makes up the internal journey (the character arc). And when a big plot turn happens externally, it's also often a big moment internally because it alters how the character responds (generally speaking).

So, essentially, what happens externally impacts the character internally, and vice versa, almost constantly. (And you normally shouldn't be trying to write an internal journey that has no connection to the external happenings.)

A relationship plotline can also overlap, which usually means the relationship characters are nearly always together, and the major external turns are happening at the same time as the major relationship turns. Meaning, they're at least happening in the same scenes.

Three overlapping plotlines

For example, in The Lord of the Rings, Frodo's external, internal, and relationship plotlines overlap for almost the whole story. Sam is right there with him most of the time. The "journeys" overlap, and often so do the "destinations."

The climax of Frodo's external plotline is also the climax of his internal plotline and relationship plotline. They all happen in the same scene. When Frodo collapses, Sam carries him the rest of the way to Mount Doom--this major moment (known as "The Grand Gesture") is the climax of the relationship plotline, while arriving at Mount Doom to throw the Ring in, is the climax of the external plotline. It's also the climax of the internal plotline, because this is the peak test for Frodo where he must choose whether or not to throw the Ring in, and complete his character arc.

Yes, you could argue that they do happen in a sequence--first the collapse, then the refusal to throw the Ring, then the Ring falling in, thanks to Smeagol. But they happen in nearly the same moment.

It is possible, though, to literally have them happen in the exact same moment. In Revenge of the Sith, the climax of the external, internal, and relationship plotlines all happen in the exact same moment: Anakin refuses to accept loss (internal) as he jumps at Obi-Wan who cuts him down (relationship and external).

It's not necessarily inherently better to have it one way or another, but they can create a different effect.

You can also, in this sense, have storylines that largely overlap.

Sam's storyline also largely overlaps with Frodo's, but he experiences their adventure differently than Frodo. He wants to complete the external goal without Smeagol, while Frodo wants him to be their guide. Sam doesn't really have an internal plot line and doesn't deeply understand or empathize with the temptation of the Ring. The whole time, he wants to be close to Frodo, but sometimes Frodo wants him gone. Same adventure, different impacts, different personal experiences.

You can also have plotlines, plot points, and storylines that don't line up.

Separate Plotlines & Plot Points

It's possible to write a story where the "journeys" and "destinations" don't align and don't happen in the same scenes. In fact, it's common to have parts where they overlap and parts where they are separate.

In contrast to Sam, Aragorn's storyline, especially in the second and third installments, does not overlap with Frodo's, and so none of his plotlines do either (other than they are both involved in the same societal conflict). Aragorn is essentially completely separate. His journeys and destinations happen in completely different scenes. And often, his relationship plotlines and plot points happen in separate scenes from his external ones. The Grand Gesture (which is actually carried out by Arwen) doesn't happen at the same time as Aragorn's climactic battle to save Middle-earth.

But let me give another example. In The Greatest Showman, P. T.'s external plotline is to successfully bring people entertainment (first through the circus and then through Jenny Lind) but his relationship plotline is with Charity, who has little to do with the circus or Jenny. His internal plotline is about seeking acceptance. The final major plot turn with the circus happens when it burns down. The climactic plot point of the internal journey happens when he drinks at a bar and comes to his senses--he doesn't need the world to accept him. The climactic turn of the relationship journey happens when he runs back to Charity to right things. These all happen in separate scenes, in separate moments.

It's technically possible to write a story where the external, relationship, and societal plotlines are all separate. 

It's also possible to write a book where each storyline is completely separate.

Character A has a separate storyline from Character B

The external, relationship, and societal plotlines may be separate

As mentioned already, it's also possible to have some parts that overlap and others parts that are separate. For example, you could have plotlines that share the "journey" but have different "destinations." Or they share the "destinations" but have different journeys.

Or anything in between.

Keeping Separate Lines Relevant

Now, if storylines and/or plotlines are indeed separate for the whole duration of the story, they still need to be somehow linked and relevant to each other--otherwise it doesn't make sense to have them in the same volume.

One way to do this is through theme. So, for example, let's say I have three storylines. Even if these characters never cross paths, their experiences may all relate to the theme of "destiny." One character may be excitedly seeking a fortuneteller to learn her destiny. Another may be trying to prove we create our own destinies. And another may be struggling against an inevitable fate. All different stories, but all connected to the topic of destiny.

More commonly, though, the storylines or plotlines will somehow connect into or influence each other. Frequently this is done through a societal plotline that sort of works as an "umbrella" for the others to fit under (or feed into).

In The Lord of the Rings, everyone is influencing (or being influenced by) the society/world plotline with Sauron. Aragorn's and Frodo's storylines (and arguably nearly everyone else's) feed into successfully defeating Sauron by defeating his forces. In Star Wars, every storyline influences or is influenced by the conflict between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire.

It's possible, too, that they are all funneling into the main external plotline. In The Umbrella Academy (season one), all of the storylines and plotlines influence (or are influenced by) Five's external plotline of stopping the apocalypse--that is the dominating plotline. It is what glues everything together. Vanya, Cha Cha & Hazel, Diego, the Commission, everything relates to stopping (or not stopping) the apocalypse.

Timing Separate Plot Points, Plotlines, Storylines

A question that often comes up near here is, if you are working with separate plotlines and storylines, how do you know what needs to happen when? 

In story structure, it's common to use percentages as guidelines. Yes, some writers hate percentages, but they are the fastest, easiest way to explain when a key moment should happen in a story, so we'll use them. Frequently these major moments are broken down like this:

Plot Point 1--25%

Midpoint--50%

Plot Point 2--75%

Climax--85 - 100% (I mean, we gotta leave room for some falling action)

But if you are working with separate lines, it can immediately become confusing. Does every plotline and storyline need these plot points? And if so, how do you time them? They can't all hit at the 25% mark.

First, if you are working with throughlines, then pretty much, yes, every plotline and storyline should have these major turns (there is always room for rule breaks, but generally speaking). If they are separate, that means you are creating different moments (scenes) for these.

As for the timing, if each Plot Point 1 happens in a separate scene, they obviously aren't going to all happen at the 25% mark. That's okay. The percentages are guidelines. And there are a couple of ways you can handle this.

Sequential: You can structure the story so that these happen one after another, like my Greatest Showman example. They don't even have to be directly after each other, but they are close enough. Another example would be in The X-Files: Fight the Future; the relationship midpoint literally can't happen in the same scene as the external plotline's midpoint--it wouldn't make sense. So the writers placed it a bit after the 50% mark, when it was most appropriate.

Stagger the plot points

In Quarters: Dramatica Theory offers a rule of thumb that I have always appreciated. When working with throughlines, you keep things in their appropriate quarters. For example, say we have two external throughlines that are totally separate--separate journeys and separate destinations. One is Character A's and the other is Character B's.

You don't get far into Character A's second quarter before completing Character B's first quarter. You could, theoretically, do all of Character A's first quarter, and then all of Character B's first quarter. But you don't get 37% into Character A's story when you've only gotten 15% into Character B's.

That's for throughlines.

And again, these are just guidelines--I'm not saying all successful stories have handled it in these ways, or that you can't handle it another way. But if you need help organizing things and want a surefire way to keep the structure satisfying, those are some helpful ideas or principles.

What I most commonly see is, the text alternating between the "journeys" (the climbs) and then having them hit the "destinations" (the peaks) sequentially.

Structuring Subplots

Okay, so keeping things in their separate quarters sounds great when you are working with throughlines . . . but what about those plotlines that aren't throughlines? What about, what I'm calling, "subplots"? 

Again, there are a couple of ways you handle them.

Option One: You simply structure the plotline (or storyline) as a one or two-act story. What this means is, it will have fewer major turning points than a throughline. If the plotline starts in Act II and ends in Act III (as often happens in relationship plotlines), then it has three major "peaks" or turns, not four. If it happens only in Act II, then it has two major peaks. If in Act I or Act III, then one.

These major turns can overlap with the throughlines' or be separate. 

Option Two: You "accordion" the plotline. You smoosh the four major turns (and journeys) into a shorter space. This means the subplot's peaks may not align closely with the dominating plotline's peaks, but it usually works out okay. . . . as long as we get rises, peaks, and falls happening. (If you are familiar with the differences between scene, sequence, and act, then in a sense, you are taking the subplot's "acts" and putting them in as sequences.)

There is always room for flexibility, but these two perspectives are consistently helpful for me.

On-Page or Off-Page?

If you have a lot of plotlines, not everything happening in them is going to show up on-page. I mean, you can say that regardless, but it's especially true when you have a lot of plotlines. That would be too much and too long and likely mess up pacing.

Generally speaking, the more important the plotline, the more of it should be on the page (or screen).

One of the things that makes a dominating plotline, a dominating plotline, is that it gets the lion's share of the word count. Frodo's external plotline gets more attention than Eowyn's. If Eowyn had more, it'd likely feel odd and unbalanced (or like she was trying to be the main character).

So, how do you decide which moments the audience needs to witness firsthand?

Well, in any plotline, the most important moments are the plot points. It's usually more important that the plot points are on the page, than the "journeys." After those major plot points, it's the medium-sized plot points that matter most (the inciting incident and pinch points). When you need to, you can fill in the "journeys" by implying what happened or using summary.

But as always, there is room for exceptions.

Basically, though, the less important the plotline, the less of it needs to be on the page, and its best, most important parts to put on the page, are usually its plot points.