How to Set the Scope for Your Story
A 5-step guide to refining and focusing your creative vision
The scope of a story is one of the most important elements writers need to consider before they start writing. It helps us figure out the size and scale of the piece.
For some stories, that means zooming in to look at a specific character, scene, or time period. For other stories, it means pulling the lens out and discussing things on a larger scale.
Scope can also refer to the number of characters, POVs, and the overall length of the story. It’s an important thing to consider, because problems tend to arise when you realize it’s either too large or too small for the project you’re working on.
So that’s why today, I’d like to talk about setting the scope for your story. The goal here is to establish boundaries that will work for your project, without limiting your imagination. As with anything, it’s all about balance. Let’s get into it!
5 Steps for Setting Your Story’s Scope
I’ve been a writer professionally for over ten years now, and I’ve been a creative writer my whole life. Regardless of what type of writing I’m doing, thinking about the scope of a project is always the first thing on my mind.
If I’m writing an article for work, I think about how many topics I want to cover and how deep to dive into the topic. If I’m writing a story or poem on Substack, I think about the word count, the general concept of the story, and of course, the amount of time I have to write it.
It’s easy to associate “scope” with limiting yourself or your story, but that’s not the right way to look at it. As writers, we need to set guard rails for ourselves so we don’t drive off the road.
Setting the scope isn’t about minimizing your vision, it’s about focusing and sharpening it to make the final piece the best it can be.
And, most importantly, setting the proper scope ensures that you can actually finish your project. We all hate admitting that we’re human (I know I do), but if we let the scope get out of control and fall down a rabbit hole, then what happens?
We get overwhelmed, we decide to shelve the idea for later, or worst of all…
The story, poem, or book never gets written.
So, my goal with today’s article is to make sure that doesn’t happen. In the spirit of that, here are five steps to help you transform raw inspiration into a finished piece of art by setting the proper scope for the project from the beginning.
Step 1: Choose the Format of Your Story
So, you just got a new idea. You were probably driving, doing the dishes, or taking a shower, weren’t you? Inspiration strikes when we least expect it, but it’s hard to know what form the idea will take.
A good place to start is to think about what format would work best to tell the story that you’re uncovering in your mind. Does it feel like a short story? A flash fiction? A poem? Or maybe something larger like a new book?
You won’t know all the answers in the moment, but it’s important to at least narrow down the options. And, of course, you should consider how this will fit into your current workload.
If you’re like me and you’re already working on several projects (including a novel), it may be a good idea to just focus on finding a balance where the story can exist, but in a shorter format.
And, don’t forget, this decision isn’t final. You’re allowed to change your mind as the project comes together. Thinking about this, though, will set you up nicely for step two.
Step 2: Decide on a Starting Point
Okay, so you’ve got a new idea, but now you’re staring at a blank document. Starting a story can be a daunting task, but once you get going it becomes easier and easier in my experience. So, let’s take the stress out by selecting a starting point.
Your idea may include a wide range of potential settings across various time periods within your setting, so a good way to narrow the scope is to think about where this piece will fit into the larger world.
Something that a lot of writers (myself included) like to use is a tactic called in media res which roughly translates to “in the middle of things.” This approach allows you to jump right into the action, which is especially useful if you’re doing a short story or flash fiction.
And, of course, you want to capture your reader’s attention from the beginning. What better way than to jump right into things! This strategy alone is a wonderful way to sharpen the scope of your work, but there are other options.
You can also use something called a “sweep” to help set the stage for everything. If you’d like a deep dive into the concept, I’d recommend this Writers Digest article, but I’ll provide an overview here as well.
The sweep is a concept that allows you to quickly catch the reader up on important events, but it’s a little different than just dropping paragraphs of exposition. It gives you key context before zooming in to the story at hand.
Many of us probably do this without ever knowing that it’s called the “sweep.” I know I have, but it’s an effective way to convey key information without slowing down the pacing of the story.
It also doesn’t have to be used in the very beginning of the story. It can show up as sort of a “montage” kind of moment to fill in the gaps between two time jumps, for example.
However you decide to employ it, your sweep should succinctly cover elements that the reader needs to know from across your setting or from your character’s past. It can include a summary of physical events and psychological impacts on your character as well if you’d like.
Let’s check out an example. Here’s what I would consider a “sweep” from the beginning of a recent story I did called When It’s Over.
The Aeternus war had been raging for generations. Centuries of unending battle, trillions of deaths, and hundreds of worlds.
People were handed a weapon from the moment they were born, and battle was all they would ever know.
And, if they were lucky, they wouldn’t live long.
See how I established the setting as well as the psychological impacts of the war in just the first few lines? From here, the story jumps right into the action, so it’s a combination of the sweep and in media res which can work really well to balance your scope with the focus of your story.
Keep in mind that a sweep should be connected directly to the central topic of your story. It’s very easy to fill a sweep with exposition that sounds cool, but may not be related directly to what’s happening in the current piece.
For example, if I had gone on a tangent about how the Aeternus war started, or I talked about one of the pivotal battles that was unrelated to the one that comes up next in the story, I would be expanding the scope, but at the cost of distracting the reader and of course, slowing down the pacing.
And that brings us to step three.
Step 3: Consider Your Goals for the Piece
Your scope should be directly tied to the ultimate goals for your project. Whether you’re a plotter, a pantser, or a plantser like me, you’ll have some idea of what the primary story beats are as you plan out your project.
When you’re employing things like in media res, sweeps, or other literary devices, make sure that they are all serving the goals of the story.
If we look at my example from earlier, When It’s Over, that flash fiction was for a Madness & (May)hem prompt where I asked writers to tell a story set in a single moment.
So right there, I had a goal. I needed the story to be super focused on a specific event. That meant that I needed to set context and then get straight into it. That’s how I reached my final approach which combined the two aforementioned strategies into one tale.
If you’re using a prompt like that one for your story, that’s great! You already have one of your goals lined up for the story. Let’s assume you’re not starting from a prompt, though. How do you pinpoint the goals of the story and tie them to the scope?
Well, for that we think about The Hero’s Journey, and not necessarily the entire thing, but some of the major elements. In particular, there are three major phases of the structure that we’ll look at today:
Separation - What event or experience sets the hero on their journey?
Initiation - What journey or struggles do they go through?
Return - How are they changed or transformed by what happened?
These three phases will look different from story-to-story, and more specifically, they may be quite condensed if you’re doing a short story or flash fiction, and that’s totally fine!
In the context of your story’s scope, it’s just important to think about these three things because they will act as pillars for you to establish a strong beginning, middle, and end.
Once you know what these three phases broadly look like, you’ll have a natural structure to work within, thereby bringing your scope into clearer focus. A
t this point, you’ll probably start writing, and if you’re anything like me, you’re going to get new ideas as you go.
Time for step four.
Step 4: Eliminate any Extraneous Details or Subplots
Inspiration doesn’t stop once you start writing. In fact, new ideas will start popping up like weeds in your front yard once you get into your story. You’ll see opportunities for interesting side stories, subplots, or additional details that will tempt you to stray from the path.
Inspiration in the moment is an amazing feeling, but often you may find that every new idea sounds good because you’re riding that high of being in a flow state.
When you get a new idea, don’t be afraid to write it down or maybe add some notes to your draft, but before you commit to it, take a step back and ask yourself if this new concept is adding to the goals you established in step three.
If the answer is no, then it may not be worth adding to this specific piece. Maybe it could serve as a separate story later or as part of a sequel/prequel, but always double-check yourself to ensure you don’t widen your scope (and therefore your workload) because an idea sounded good in the moment.
Something I like to do is allow myself to add those extra details (especially if they’re small) and then just give them a second look during the editing phase.
When you’re drafting, all ideas are going to sound good (and they might be!), but when you come back to edit the piece, you’ll have a more level head and therefore will be able to surmise what’s truly worth keeping.
And here’s the thing: you’re allowed to stray from the path. After all, you’re the one who built the path to begin with. It’s your world! Now, that being said, it’s important to set boundaries, which funny enough, is the fifth step here.
It’s almost like I planned out the scope for this article beforehand or something. 😉
Anyway, let’s keep going!
Step 5: Set Boundaries (both literally and metaphorically)
And finally, our last step is to set boundaries for your scope. The human imagination is limitless, which is amazing, but that also means that you could keep going in any direction nearly forever without ever finishing your story, poem, article, or whatever project you’ve taken on.
If we think of a story’s scope as a sandbox, the boundaries allow you to understand where the edges of the world or the events within it end. It’s a conscious decision, but it will ensure that everything that you do happens within that sandbox.
If your story is set in a specific city or town, one of your boundaries may be that nothing can happen outside that location in your world. That’s a fair boundary, but it also leaves you to room to add anything that feels important within that fictional space.
Another example of a good boundary is time. If your story is set in a specific moment or time period, you could limit yourself to staying in that moment.
When your mind starts to come up with something that happened before or after, you can stop and remind yourself that you’ve decided to stay within the moment the story takes place.
It goes without saying, but boundaries in this context can also refer to the size of the story. Setting a maximum word count, for example, can be a very tangible way to put a stake in the ground in terms of the project’s scope.
The boundaries themselves should be clear, but how you wish to set them is entirely up to you. Another way to think of it is to consider how modern video games (even the biggest ones) have limits to the size of their map and what you can do within it.
Think of your story as something similar. Once you reach the edge of that “map” you know that anything else beyond it is for a different story or project.
That doesn’t mean you can’t ever do it, but it does mean that it’s outside the scope of your current piece.
Don’t Let Scope Creep Hold You Back!
Now that we’ve discussed how to set the scope for your story, I want to leave you with a final term you may not have heard before. It’s called “scope creep.”
This term refers to what happens when a project’s scope continues to grow as it goes on, but it’s a slow, creeping process.
You add something new here, or you throw in an extra scene here, and you do this thinking that it’s a good idea in the moment, but what happens in the long-term is that the scope becomes so large that you can’t realistically finish the project.
Scope creep is a real thing in a lot of different industries and creative projects, but the good news is that you can drastically reduce the risk of it by having a strong understanding of the scope from the beginning.
My hope is that these five steps will help you do just that. Thanks as always for reading, and let me know how you define the scope for your various projects in the comments!
Thanks for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing
Here’s some inspiring music to help boost your confidence as you set your scope and head out on your next adventure.
This is an amazing piece! It's so full of useful information, thank you so much!