How to Outline Your Story
WWW #87 How to Outline Your Story
I’ve talked about How I Plan My Stories as a Freelancer but I haven’t broken down the specifics of how I outline my stories and books.
While the writing world is split by pantsers and plotters, I will always shout out the outline. Knowing what you are going to write ahead of time and planning it will help you avoid the dreaded plot holes and many problems that can crop up during the writing process.
Do you outline? Whether you do or you are a raging pantser, let’s learn about outlines!
Why Do I Write Outlines?
I outline everything I write. My fiction commission work depends on it as I need a way to communicate to my clients what will be in their story, how many words are in each scene, and more. All of my clients review my outlines, add details (or ask for changes) and then approve them so I can begin writing. It’s essential to stick to the outline too so the client gets exactly what they expect.
So how do I do it? Read on!
The Outline
An outline has one main purpose: To be clear, concise, and organized. I often have two documents, one for all my random thoughts and notes, and then my outline. Outlines should point you in the direction you want to go but don’t necessarily have to have everything in them. The reason for this is so your direction is clear and you are not getting bogged down by the details.
Here are some key components:
The Scene: Marking your scenes can be helpful so you know what is happening when. These are the biggest sections of moments or if you are working on a manuscript-size work, you can instead break it up by chapters. By breaking down your ideas into smaller sections, they become more manageable.
The Part: In a small story or a book-length work, there can be many parts and moments that are not necessarily in a different scene and can make up one larger scene. I use this distinction to break up my big ideas to make sure everything is in order.
The Actions: The actions characters make in each part or the steps taken in the plot are listed here. Again, it helps to make sure everything is in order. It’s like following a map!
The Details: Every moment and action is going to have key details. Any little ideas, dialogue, or anything you don’t want to forget can go here.
Now here is how I write it out. Feel free to copy and paste this and use it as a template!
Scene: Insert one line about the scene.
Part 1: TITLE
(Word Count)
1. Action 1
a. Detail
b. Detail
2. Action 2
a. Detail
b. Detail
3. Action 3
a. Detail
b. Detail
Or I divide my outline up by topics. This allows me to work with more in-your-head kinds of information. This works great for stories that really focus on the character’s thoughts and internal turmoil/conflict rather than actions pacing the scene.
Part 1: TITLE
(Word Count)
1. Main Idea 1
a. Supporting detail
b. Supporting detail 2
2. Main Idea 2
a. Supporting detail
b. Supporting detail
3. Main Idea 3
a. Supporting detail
b. Supporting detail
One of My Outlines, as an Example
To give you an example of my real outlines, here are two stories I worked on recently.
A couple of months ago, I started the first chapter of a fanfiction commission set in the world of Warhammer. Each chapter is 10,000 words long so that takes a lot of planning to make sure everything is spaced out and action-packed at the same time! Here is the first chapter’s outline. Read through it and notice the key action points or ideas and how I split them up. As I said above, I keep these outlines simple because I want to see everything I need to know at a glance. When I start writing, I work one line at a time.
Part 1: Establish the battle and characters
2,000 words, 2,000/10,000 words
1. The story starts with the MC in a combat situation.
a. His squad was cut off during a battle inside a city.
i. The chapter starts with them on the move, in the silence as their position is not yet tracked.
ii. They are discovered and run for cover, split from the rest of the platoon.
iii. They hide in the bottom floor of a building, trying to hold their position and decide what to do next.
b. Artillery and tanks of both sides shell each other’s position.
2. Establish the main character, background, and situation in the midst of the chaos.
Part 2: Loss
2,000 words, 4,000/10,000 words
1. MC is trying to stem the bleeding of one of his friends while the rest try to fight of enemy soldiers closing in
a. Some of his friends have already died
b. Set up the situation, character fears, problems, and trying to figure out what move to make next.
i. In the moment, MC has a lot of experience handling these moments. As a newbie he had been panicked but he now tries to focus on getting out.
Part 3: Escalation
2,000 words, 6,000/10,000 words
1. Artillery shell hits the house where his squad took cover, debris hitting and killing the friend he tries to save
a. Position becomes untenable and the rest of the group has to leave
i. They gather and count the remaining numbers of their squad.
b. Enemy now knowing exactly where they are continue pounding their position with small arms fire and artillery
Part 4: Escape
2,000 words, 8,000/10,000 words
1. The squad makes their way through the area, dodging artillery and struggling to find a safe place. (Follow the characters through this moment).
Part 5: The Portal
2,000 words, 10,000/10,000 words
1. His group gets separated, and MC runs into another house
a. Artillery shell hits the damaged house, and it collapses
b. Ground Floor collapses and MC falls down.
c. Instead of hitting the ground and being crushed however he falls through a portal made out of the warp which transports him somewhere else.
Outline Example #2
To give you another example (because I live for examples!) here is a story I was commissioned to write called, “The Rise of Nyssa.” This is part one, covering the first 5,000 words. You’ll notice in both outlines I title each part. That helps me remember what each part is about.
Part 1: On Earth
500 words (500/5,000 words)
1. It starts with Katherine Arden, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy oil mogul.
a. She's on her way back from a party while arguing with her boyfriend over the phone before she breaks up with him and violently hangs up.
b. During this, she reminisces on her life and how no one seems to understand her, especially how she has to hide her love for tabletop games and cosplaying so that she won't be seen as a loser, sighing and wishing that she could be like all the evil sorceresses she liked to play as in Dungeons and Dragons.
i. She mostly played it online or in a friend's place.
2. Suddenly, a drunk driver swerves in front of her and causes her to crash.
a. The drunk driver was driving a Chevy.
b. Katherine was driving a GMC.
Part 2: New World
500 words (1,000 words/ 5,000 words)
1. Katherine wakes up in a field of grass in a fantasy land and looks around confused.
2. She is suddenly attacked by a bunch of bandits.
3. She manages to run away. She doesn’t view them as people, more like a game.
Part 3: The Witch
1,500 words (2,500 words/5,000 words)
1. Kat, scared after barely managing to get away from the bandits, accepts, mentally noting that she'll make everyone that ever slighted her pay.
2. She soon walks to an old hut where she meets an old witch, who offers to take her in.
a. She looks like a shaman, about thirty years old with amber hair and shamanistic tattoos, a voice like honey almost. Very wise and compassionate. She is very kind to Kat, though she is a stern teacher, teaching her because she wants to give her something to defend herself.
3. Well, she's obviously shellshocked, but she soon forgets about it entirely, showing how little even her own family means to her.
4. She thinks she's in a new world, especially when she learns from the witch.
5. She is actually a complete tabletop and fantasy geek, and internally jumps for joy at the chance to actually become an evil sorceress or witch (at first.)
Part 4: 3 Years Later
1,500 words (4,000 words/5,000 words)
1. 3 years pass, where Kat has become a full-blown witch.
a. Types of magic: Incantations, runes, and symbols. Though she has nonverbal spells.
b. She tries to mostly keep to herself, not kidnap any princesses, or make it obvious where she is. However, she can't help but to gloat and monologue due to her arrogance, and like you read, she ends up killing a minion over a petty slight.
2. When she learns enough magic, she kills her teacher by feeding her poison and uses her corpse as a means of creating an elixir to give herself immortality and god-like beauty.
a. It's a powder that she places in her teacher's soup, odorless and tasteless. The Witch taught her.
3. After drinking she falls unconscious.
Part 5: The Farm Girl
1,000 words (5,000 words/5,000 words)
1. She wakes up.
a. Her clothes have been burned to ash.
2. She baths in the river.
3. She's discovered a farm girl, whom she seduces into giving her food and clothing.
a. Cera gives her a smock and a cloak.
b. Cera is surprised by her and quickly enamored.
4. Kat puts a spell on Cera.
a. Before she goes off, Cera asks for her name.
i. Kat ponders for a few moments before she answers with the name of her old D&D character: Nyssa, the Witch Queen.
Conclusion
Outlines are here to help you know what to do, what to expect, and how to organize your writing. If you find yourself struggling with a blank outline, try to instead write down all your ideas at once. Next, put that in chronological or story order. Then break up scene by scene. Go a little further and break them up moment by moment and then action by action. That’s how I usually do start and that can help you literally look at your story step by step. This is very helpful to do on the computer so you can hit that “enter” key to break up each part into one long list. Then it is all ready to format into an outline!