Outlines are simply plans. Just like you plan a meal, a trip, a marriage proposal, or a vacation. And, as with those kinds of plans, things can change. You can add stuff into the mix or take elements away. Something unexpected could arise and you have to adjust your plan. All of that is just part of the creative process. What a plan saves you from is excessive feelings of being confused, lost, or not knowing what comes next. This saves you time and headache regarding your plot, your characters, and the overall content of your piece.
What Outlines Don’t Do
There are some myths floating around about what outlines do. The first step in understanding outlines is to dispel these myths.
Outlines DO NOT box you in. One of the most common arguments against using outlines is that the outline is somehow magically restraining you from doing anything that’s not written in the outline. This is an example of you letting a tool use you instead of the other way around. As noted in the intro to this lesson, you can make changes as you go. If you get to the end of the outline and think of a character you want to add to the story, add them. If you get halfway through the outline and remember that you need a chapter dedicated to explaining a particular concept, add it. If you finish the entire manuscript and decide there’s a scene you want to add somewhere, add it to the manuscript then update your outline to reflect that.
You use the outline, don’t let the outline use you. Outlines are flexible, living documents that you control.
Outlines DO NOT crush your creativity. Outlines don’t have much to do with your creativity at all, in fact. At best, they allow you to focus more on the creative process. This may be because, instead of coming up with ideas and managing how to express them at the same time, you separate the two processes. During outlining, you focus on what’s going to be included in the book. During writing, you only concern yourself with how you’re going to present the info to a reader. Like trying to build a street as you’re driving down it, or trying to eat a cake as you’re cooking it, attempting to both create and edit ideas simultaneously splits your energy and focus, meaning you don’t give either process as much attention as you could.
Outlines DO NOT guarantee “success” (whatever that means to you). People outline horrible movies and unreadable books. People outline (i.e., create recipes for) vomit-inducing entrees and gut-wrenching beverages. Just because you use an outline, that doesn’t automatically mean that whatever you come up with is going to be of any value to your customers, is going to be easily / enjoyably consumed, or is going to win you awards or make you millions of dollars. Different people have different ideas of what “success” means in the literary world. To some, it’s getting their screenplay optioned. To others, it’s getting their novel into the hands of more than a thousand readers. To others, it’s all about them having written something they can be proud to call their own and even pass down to their heirs. Outlines help you organize your ideas. But if those ideas are not ones that can bring you whatever kind of success you’re looking for, the outline can’t force them to.
What Outlines Do
Types of Outlines
Now you have a much more detailed guide for your writing sessions. In theory, you could sit down and write one bullet point each day and be done with your first draft in less than two weeks. You can also keep unpacking these points. Turn nine points into twenty-seven. Turn twenty-seven into eighty-one, and so on.
With each round of unpacking, your plot becomes more clearly defined.
Key Point: You don’t need to spend a lot of time thinking through a plot / content point. Just write down whatever comes to mind. Since you can change it later, you’re not locked into it. For example, if you write that a character falls off of a 40-foot ledge, but they are alive and well in the next scene, you’ll eventually have to figure out how they survived their fall, remove the fall scene, or insert some kind of supernatural abilities or happenings at some point. But, for now, you can just write the fall scene and then write the scene afterwards and you can fill in the middle later. Don’t let not knowing what takes place at this point stop you from moving forward with the outlining and even the writing process. If you write the draft and still have this plot hole, don’t be afraid to hand the problem to your developmental editor for repair. Their expertise will likely mean they can come up with a viable solution.
Detailed Outlines
For many authors, a bulleted list as an outline is fast and easy enough to produce, but offers a greater level of support than not using an outline at all. But if you’re looking for a more intricate method of planning your novel, you may want to try a detailed outline.
This kind of outline involves thoroughly laying out exactly what is going to take place in each scene as opposed to using short words or phrases to describe what happens. When you use an outline like this, each writing session has minimal guesswork involved because you know exactly what’s going to happen and how.
Here’s an example using a three-column table format (but remember that you can format your outlines however you like, you don’t have to be as big of a nerd as I am!).
EXAMPLE: Little Red Riding Hood
| Chapter | Scene | Content |
| 1 | 1 | Hunter and his party are out in the woods looking for a pack of wolves that was sighted near the village (express this through dialogue). They hear nothing at first as they reach the spot where the pack was last seen. Then they hear pounding as some large, heavy animals come toward them. The largest wolves they’ve ever seen. The one headed for Hunter’s face dives into the air above him and he falls onto his back and blindly fires toward the animal before everything goes black. |
| 2 | Red wakes up to the smell of pancakes and bacon. She walks out into the kitchen, sad at seeing the empty third seat at their table (where her father used to sit), and snatches a slice of bacon out of the pan before her mother can slap her hand away. Mother chides Red for being so impulsive and impatient. Mother stares at the third chair for a moment as well and goes quiet. She serves breakfast to Red and sits down to eat her own meal. She tells Red that someone from the village is coming to patch their roof before the next rain, but she promised Granny she’d send her some medicine because she hasn’t been feeling well. If Red promises to go straight there and not stop and swears she won’t talk to any strangers along the way, mother will let her go alone to grandmother’s house with the delivery. Red excitedly promises, downs the rest of her food, and gets up to get dressed. | |
| 2 | 1 | Hunter wakes up in an unfamiliar place. He tries to sit up and feels the pain of his battered body. He’s at Granny’s house, a fellow survivor having dragged him there after the wolf he killed landed on top of him. He’s been out for a few hours. Granny brings him some tea and cookies and says he can rest as long as he needs to. But he wants to get going to make sure the wolves are taken care of as soon as possible in order to protect the village. He and his friend leave and tell Granny to stay inside until they come tell her that it’s safe. She agrees and shuts herself up in her house. The men walk away discussing what happened in the clearing. There were at least eight wolves and they went back to the clearing to find seven bodies. There’s one missing. It could be anywhere. They call for help clearing away the wolves and the dead. A few injured men are still laying in place, resting with broken bones and claw marks. Hunter sees paw prints leading back toward the village. |
Key Point: Notice how there are errors throughout this outline. Now is not the time to agonize over whether or not a word should be capitalized or how a comma should be used in a particular sentence. These notes are for your eyes only. If you would like to share your outline, you’ll probably send it to a professional developmental editor so they can help your strengthen your book’s framework. They will understand where you are in the book planning process and won’t bat an eye at the errors that they see. You could also ask for volunteers to review your outline to help you avoid organizational problems with your first draft. Even if they point out where small errors are, you don’t need to make any changes so long as you understand your own prompts. Professional copy editing for the manuscript, blurb,and promotional copy will be done later, but it’s nothing you need to concern yourself with right now.
Increasing Objectivity
Because you are the one coming up with these ideas, it’s difficult to be objective about them. But there are two ways to help gain more objectivity.
Take a break. When you set your outline aside for a few days, you can come back to it with a fresh perspective. Taking this break will never create the level of objectivity that a stranger would have, but it can be helpful. Upon review you may find ways that scenes can be rearranged, things that can be removed, or places where segments / scenes could be added. This saves you from having to do this level of heavy lifting with entire pages or chapters after the manuscript has been written.
Get an outline review. Just like you can ask a professional developmental editor to review and critique your manuscript (manuscript evaluation), you can request a review of your outline to help you avoid some common organizational issues new authors run into.
Though a review of your outline will likely be pretty cheap, if it’s too rich for your blood, consider asking one of your fellow writers to take a look at the outline and see if it makes sense and seems engaging to them. They might not have the same insights that a professional would, but it could still be beneficial, compared to revising your outline all alone.