Young Writers Society

The world is entering a new era of conflict. Where before you could board a plane with no concern, today one worries about the guy two rows up with the dark sunglasses and black briefcase, and where before you could simply walk where you please in cities like Washington DC, you are now required to present photo id in some places. The threats we are faced with today are not new. However, what is new is the disconcerting notion that any normal household object, such as a bottle of water, could instead be a weapon of mass destruction. In order to deal with these threats, we must act decisively and take bold action when necessary. But neither should we charge recklessly with abandon. Rather, we must take the time to write an outline.

Whether it's a certain war in the Middle East or the novel in your head, any bold project can be destroyed due to lack of planning. No matter how great your idea or how superb your writing, your novel will lose coherence, ramble along, and lack cohesion if you do not take time to sit down and write an outline.

Planning ahead can be tough; just ask any college graduate. But it can be well worth it and you will come to regret it if you do not plan ahead; just ask any retiree in Florida. So while it may indeed be a pain to write that outline rather than forge ahead with your brilliant idea, your novel will be the better for it.

So how then do you write the outline? There are many ways to do this and it will vary from person to person. Some like to write their outlines for their novel as they would for their English paper. Others simply like to write a short synopsis for each chapter. Still, others like to go above and beyond with their outlines and practically write the entire novel before bothing to write the first sentence.

Alas, though, for I have neither the time nor the patience to diligently explain each method. Instead, what I'd like to do is ask everyone else how they go about coming up with an outline. So... how do you write your outline?

I write a detailed summary of the story. Then after a gjillion years of research, I finally get down to the real aspect of it: I write.

http://www.writetoinspire.com/article1258.html

That helpful link is the Snowflake Process. If I were the sort of person to stick to a plan, I'd use it. It's incredibly helpful, so I use bits and pieces from it to plan my novels, but I don't follow it step by step. I recommend taking a look at it to anyone that hasn't yet.

I combine the snowflake technique, which I use for outlining novels, with phasing, which I use for planning chapters.

I've done some really detailed outlining, planning out each scene and what will happen in it, and I've also tried storyboard outlining. The detailed outlining gave the best results, but obviously takes much longer.

I don't outline very much. I have a rough mental idea of where the story's going to go and let it grow, evolve and change organically.

But different people work in different ways. Don't let me put you off! The main thing is to find whatever suits your writing approach best.

If you ask Sam, you'll know I'm obsessed with doing things in chronological order. The idea of writing a scene I enjoy, but not writing up to it, makes me want to leap into a pool of man eating gold fish. So I have to outline. They're usually in regular outline format like they teach you at school:


I. Chapter 1 or Chapter Name
....A. summary of chapter.

I usually don't need more than one point under each. (My English teacher would argue, "then why write the outline?" because you don't need points under a point if there isn't at least two. @_@) I found with my novel that when I started my descriptions were short, and I wanted them to be short, but as I continued they got longer. I wanted all the details I could have on the outline. I didn't finish it, so when I got to the No Outline point in my novel I was really nervous, but it worked out? And then a few chapters before my ending, I outlined the last chapters I had so I knew how I was getting to the end. For me, being able to see all the parts at one time is real nice, because I can't comprehend it in my head. I can't see the chain of events, they have to be visible to me.

Which is where this next part comes in, as crazy as it is. As most of you will know I have my first draft finished for my novel. Well, I'm fighting to find a way to print it, but one thing I want to do is take each chapter, summarize it, and lay it out. Then I will move things, add pieces, remove pieces, change pieces--and essentially create a second outline to write my second draft from. Does anyone else find it strange that I'm going from outline, to first draft, and then converting my first draft into another outline? And it isn't that I'm obsessed with outlines, I think novels are one of the only places I have to be organized and I have to see everything. (If you have seen pictures of my desk, you will know this organization doesn't stretch farther...) I find it hilarious. I wrote a rough draft just so I could write a more detailed outline for my next draft. I'm a strange writer.

My outlining tends to be messy and disorganized, but it works better than all the more organized methods for me. Usually, when I begin a work, I don't have an outline. I don't want to restrict the beginning stages of character development, and I may have a few beginning scenes planned out or written down, but I try not to hold myself to them. However, when things speed up and get complicated, I resort to an outline.

Usually, an outline for me consists of a list of bullet points with specific scenes, often accompanied by some parentheses to make the scene memorable. An excerpt from the outline of my last book:

* Lusien – Hiajan takes her, apply the correct pressures (duh shackles) --
* Traez- finds Kliana, reunion; she tells him what happened. --
* Embel – thrown into dungeons for not obeying Svarë orders, eep --
* Speaking stones scene where Creiha goes into Strick’s mind; Creiha sees Nalien; then the healing scene --
* Liehne – horror at what Nalien is, decision about poison knife --
* At night – Strick leaves + Coglia go with “not bound to the SS any longer, Creiha angry” (look me in the eyes reprise) --

Perhaps that is complete nonsense to most people, but it worked well for me and left plenty of room for elaboration and the subtraction or addition of scenes. And two dashes at the end signal that I finished the scene. And the name at the very beginning of each scene indicates whose POV it is from.

For the first book, I entered all the scenes into Excel at the end, so when I go back to edit, I can at least sort of see how many scenes there are. But when I edit, I only draft individual scenes unless I have to create a giant twist in the plot (which hopefully will not happen).

So, not all that organized, but it made it easier for me edit the outline according to how the plot was progressing and such. It got difficult when scenes were less prominent in my mind (meaning, I hadn't planned them beforehand and hadn't written down exactly what was happening), but besides that, it worked nicely.