Write Your Novels Faster: Plotting with Your Table of Contents

A Classic Table of Contents

Note: This is the third part in a 5-part weekly series on How I Write My Novels in a Month.

I don’t write novels the way I used to. When I first started back in 2010 I followed the pretty standard format – I stared at the beginning and went straight on through to the end. It didn’t get much linear than that.

Over time I started to get bored with this. I started to look at how other stories were begin plotted, not just novels. For instance, movies often use an entirely different plotting structure that breaks scenes down into small beats. Using something like that can really give you a formulaic way to write a novel faster.

But jeez, formulaic sure sounds bad. That word has such a negative connotation. Perhaps a better way to think of it would be a ‘template’ that you follow. And I think you can really find the template to most novels in the Table of Contents (TOC).

Today we’ll look at some of my TOC’s and see what we can learn about plotting your novel faster. Often this means visualizing your novel from that one page. So what does that have to do with plot? I’m sorry to say you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.

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A Standard and Boring TOC

Here’s one of my first TOC’s, which is from the novel The Jongurian Mission. As you can see it follows a pretty linear format and there’s really nothing to get excited about – just numbers! 

I don’t make just chapter numbers like this anymore, but what’s done is done. There’s nothing to tell the reader what to expect and there’s no clue as to what the story’s about, or how it unfolds, from the chapter titles. If I was looking in the Amazon ‘Look Inside’ I wouldn’t be too impressed.

A Long, Informative and Ugly TOC

The next TOC is from Write Now! 20 Simple Strategies for Successful Writing, which I wrote in March 2013. Here we get the same linear-style as the novel, even though this is a non-fiction book. At least here we’re getting some chapter titles to get an idea of what the book contains.

There’s nothing too special here, and I really don’t like the look of this TOC. Those chapters should be indented at the least, and I really wish I would have broken the book down into sections. Overall it just looks like there’s nothing much to get excited about, just a big blue blob of hyperlinks.

A Unique and Effective TOC

The next TOC on our list is from my first, and most expensive, ESL book. This TOC for English Rocks! 101 ESL Games, Activities, and Lesson Plans is huge. I mean, with a title with ‘101’ in there you know it’s going to be big.

I really do like this TOC, which is the first I used for the book. The sections are clearly labeled so you know you’re getting 101 like the title claims. You also get a nice alphabetized system that makes for easy navigation in a pinch, like when 50 ESL students are screaming your head off in class.

This takes up about a page in MS Word and a few pages on the Kindle. While those blocks might look a little large, I’d be worried about stretching that TOC over too many pages, like the next example.

A Super-Long TOC

This next TOC is from my book Ten Minute Tarot. My first Tarot book sold so well, something that really surprised me, that I wrote another one. It didn’t fare so well, and perhaps this 4-page MS Word TOC is the reason:

This TOC is long, isn’t it? On a Kindle I bet that would be 10 to 20 pages, and it takes up a good portion of that ‘Look Inside’ feature that’s really like the third-leg of your marketing stool (the other two are your cover and blurb).

It is an effective an informative TOC, and one that serves its purpose for this long non-fiction ‘how-to’ book.

A Short 3-Act Structure TOC

I really wanted to have fun writing a book, and I did that with Black Walnut. Here I wanted a story that would come in around 20,000 words or 100 pages, give or take. I wanted a basic 3-act structure. I wanted your typical Hollywood movie.

Here’s the TOC I made to get that:

This is a short and simple TOC and what I like to do for all my novelettes now. It really gives the reader a clear sense of what to expect. Here you can also see that the chapter titles all have names, something my earlier novels didn’t have. And the 3 acts are unmistakable and named.

I’m looking forward to writing the second volume of the Vigilante Justice Series in another month, and I’ll use this exact same TOC format, and thus exact same story and writing style as well.

A 3-Act Structure in 5-Part-TOC

This next TOC I wrote for my book Tarot Card Killer. I’d originally wanted to get this book enrolled in the Kindle Serials program, which requires that a new part come out each week. That would have given me 5 parts over 10 weeks, right up and into the January post-holiday-eBook-buying-binge.

Alas, Amazon rejected me. Well, actually they just never replied, which is kind of a nicer way of rejecting me.

Anyways, I uploaded the book on my own with the following TOC:

As you can see it’s divided into 5 days. I tried to follow a basic 3-act structure in this novel, with the first act unfolding over the first day and a half, the second act getting about the next two days, an finally the third act taking up the last day and a half.

It was an interesting book that I really got bogged-down on the middle with. I followed a basic puzzle writing style where I filled in that TOC as I wrote it. That meant I’d often make a hyperlink to a chapter once it was started not before. That gave me an idea at a glance of what was done and what needed doing.

Upending Your TOC and Doing Something New

Just because most people follow the same basic TOC format doesn’t mean you have to. Why not break out of the standard molds.

The TOC’s I’ve shown you so far have been pretty standard, if maybe a little different. Well, take a look at what I did for the TOC of my Kindle Worlds book Room 223:

Here you can see that the TOC is going horizontally across the page, not vertically, although it does that…well, it’s just weird.

This TOC is for a Kurt Vonnegut Kindle Worlds book, and anyone familiar with that author or the book The Sirens of Titan will probably understand.

I remember when I got the idea for this TOC back in September 2013 I was really excited! It took me another 3 months to finish the book, but I’m happy it’s now on Amazon. Now if it could just get a sale.

Making a Simple Yet Complex TOC

My latest novel, or Work in Progress (WIP) is about a group of down-on-their-luck fantasy characters. I’m really enjoying writing it, although I’m sure getting it up to 60,000 words will be tough.

Here’s what my TOC looks like so far:

This TOC primarily focuses on people and places. In the first part we get the characters, and that’s pretty clear for readers. The next part has locations of some sort, and it sure looks like directions in a building. The third part has locations, probably on a map. And finally the fourth part has something that looks like a mountain or dungeon.

Overall it’s pretty enticing (I think) with simple titles. Now, what kind of structure does the story follow – after all, it’s in 4 parts. Well, I’m still writing it, so the jury’s still out.

But if the TOC’s I’ve shown you are any indication you should probably already have a good idea that I don’t really focus on the plotting structures so much as a standard format I can cram those structures into.

Your TOC is your book in one page. It should be clear how a story will unfold, and I think clear parts with equal chapters in each are a great way to do that. Now, come back in six months and I might be saying something completely different!

Tomorrow we’ll discuss 7 Ways You Can Get Over That Writing Wall. It should be pretty interesting as I’ve just hit a wall myself and have no idea what I’m going to tell you. Thankfully no one reads this site so I’ll be alright.

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