The Steps Involved in Writing a Novel Outline That Works
To save you from staring at a blank screen
When you’re just starting and don’t have your writing process nailed yet, creating the outline can be incredibly daunting.
Don’t worry, it can actually be pretty easy.
Your outline just needs to be a map, pointing you in the right direction while you’re writing your first draft. It’s a place to store your ideas in roughly the correct order.
Getting the outline right to a certain extent means that you won’t start every writing session staring at a blank screen, waiting for inspiration to hit (if it ever does).
You also don’t need fancy apps or software to create that outline. Personally, I use a Word table to create mine. You can use whatever you feel comfortable with:
- A table
- A spreadsheet
- A notebook
- Post-it notes on your window / wall
- A large A3 piece of paper and felt tip pens
- Whatever you want!
It’s definitely worth playing with this — that’s the fun of writing, after all. In order to figure out your writing process you must experiment, play and see what works for you and what’s fun.
Because even on the bad days, there should be fun in writing. Otherwise, why are we here?
I’m not going to go into all the many ways of creating an outline. There are plenty of authors out there sharing their process that you can experiment with.
And here is mine.
This is how I write every single one of my outlines, whatever the genre or length of the story.
1. Write down what you already know about the story.
I write a short synopsis of one or two paragraphs summing up the story from beginning to end, as much as I already know. This is a great place to start so that you can see the story as a whole quickly and get your mind in the right place to start outlining.
2. Include what you think could happen, what you’d like to happen and what should happen.
Basically, spill all of your thoughts. Get all of your ideas down in the one place so you can see what might fit together, what could blend into a new idea and what doesn’t work.
3. Create a table.
Whether that’s on Word, Google Docs, Pages, your notebook or just getting out your collection of post-its.
If you know how long you’d like your book to be and roughly how long the chapters will be, then you can draw the table accurately with the right number of rows. But don’t worry if you don’t know this yet. It’ll come to you.
I use four columns. Put chapter numbers in the far left column. Even if you don’t want to use chapter numbers, try to put them in your first draft because it can make editing, organising and formatting later on so much easier.
In column two, I put which character I’m focusing on but this is because I change the POV from chapter to chapter in the majority of my books. You might not need this.
Column three is where the story goes. Leave this blank for now.
Column four is where you’ll mark when a chapter is written, so you know where you are in the story.
Here’s what mine looks like…
4. Fill it in!
I know, easier said than done, right?
Go down the table (in column three or two, depending) and tell yourself the story broken down by the chapters.
Fill in the bits you know roughly where you think they’ll happen. Hopefully, you’ll find that as you go, other bits will fill themselves in as the ideas start flowing and the story comes to you.
Don’t be scared to leave gaps or fill in a chapter with something short such as ‘fight scene’ or ‘they have a chat’. You don’t need to put in much detail if you don’t want to. Remember, your outline is a map for your story and it will change as you write so it absolutely doesn’t have to be perfect or even complete.
5. That’s it!
Time to get writing.
Worried that your outline isn’t complete? Check out this article to find out why your outline will never be really finished and why that’s a good thing.
What about those gaps?
I know this can be a massive worry for new writers. Please don’t worry about those gaps.
If, as you’re writing, you reach a gap in your outline that you can’t fill in, don’t panic! This happens a lot.
There are a few things you can do to help you figure out what happens next.
- Take a break. Let your sub-conscious figure it out while you go for a walk, do some housework, have a shower, watch a movie, read a book… Doing something physical is often best as it gives your brain a chance to work out the problem.
- Chat to someone. I used to take out my mum, put a slice of cake in front of her and then talk at her until I’d worked out the solution. She’d make supportive noises and then tell me if the idea was rubbish or not. We still do this, in this new age of not wanting to go out and eat cake, by staying in, eating cake at a distance or chatting over the phone.
Chat to a friend, family member or fellow author, whoever you feel you can trust, and either ask for their input or talk at them until the ideas come to you. - Brainstorm ideas. Write down every idea you can think of, no matter how cliché, boring or silly, just to get them out of your head. This will help you to make way for new ideas, and you may find that something wonderful ends up jumping out at you.
Writing an outline doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Just start with what you already have and go from there. Tell yourself the story in basic note form and then once you have something to guide you, get writing that first draft.
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