How to Outline a Novel: 3 Proven Methods

Whether or not you choose to outline your novel is a debated topic. But I believe it's an important first step for writing a novel. Although some say outlines stint their creativity or kill a story before it's finished, I think it gives you the structure you'll need to make sure your story is actually going somewhere.

Nothing is worse than writing 75 percent of a story only to realize: you have no idea how this story is going to end, and you've written your characters into a problem you can't get them out of.

So, I'll share three different methods to outline a novel in different levels of depth and detail.

How to Outline a Novel: The Basics

An outline is the framework of your novel. When done right, it should lay out the main characters and the major plot points of your story. Your outline does not need to include every single detail, but it should include enough detail to help you move your plot forward.

I like to think of a novel outline as a map.

Remember, that you are going to be writing your novel over a long period of time. It's easy to forget some of the details you've already written or planned to write if you didn't write them down.

How to Outline a Novel: The Components

Regardless of which outlining technique you go with, your outline should include 3 basic things:

1. Your book's basic premise. Essentially: what's this story about? As you probably recall from grade school, that story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the beginning, you'll need rising action and context. In the middle, you'll need roadblocks, tension, and suspense. And the end needs to be somewhat satisfying.

2. Your story's setting. You'll want to figure out where the story is taking place. Is it a made up world, the real world? Do you need a map to keep the geographic details straight? All of this should be planned in your outline.

3. The characters. Creating character sketches is honestly so important. And I recommend figuring out not just names and basic motivations and roles in the story. Also document how they look, what their mannerisms are, and why they exist in your story. While it's vital to thoroughly know your main characters, doing this even for tertiary characters can help make all the people in your story feel well-rounded and not flat.

3 Ways to Outline a Novel

I know that outlining isn't always as fun as getting straight into writing. It requires a lot of organization, research, and effort documenting details you may or may not even use.

But I really do think it's worth taking the time, especially if you choose the right approach to outline your novel for you.

Let me talk through how to outline a novel using three different approaches.

1. The Skeleton Outline

You might have learned about skeleton outlines in school. The basic idea is you write down your "thesis" statement and then just plot the high level elements that take you from A to B.

In the context of writing a book, this would be you writing one-sentence about what your book is about (PRO TIP: This will come in handy if you ever choose to query an agent to represent your book. They'll want to see your pitch sentence).

Then, you outline the high-level structure of your book. Basically, what's the beginning, middle, and end as well as what are each of the major conflicts in the book. It might look like this:

• Beginning Conflict

  • Opening detail: introduction to your main character

  • Call to adventure: what trouble do they immediately get into?

  • Raising the stakes: how can you further irritate the conflict to increase suspense?

• Rising Conflict

  • Include bullet points here for the barriers the character faces trying to overcome the trouble they're in.

  • This will include additional conflicts and high-level notes of how other major characters come to play.

• Book Resolution

  • How is your character ultimately going to solve their problem?

  • What emotional resolution will the character get?

  • How does your story end?

If you like this approach, check out some of these plot templates.

2. A Living Outline

One approach I've used a few times in the past, is to create an outline template where you fill in the basics (like the skeleton outline). This is essentially putting up the frame of your house. But you fill in the details of the story as you write—like what characters look like, important setting notes.

What's nice about this outline is it lets you come up with story details more freely and in a more creative way. But it also provides you enough basic structure to not mix up or forget key details and to still give you a basic map forward.

In this kind of outline, I may change where things are headed based on what I come up with as I write. This offers me maximum flexibility.

But you have to remember to continue to update your outline. Don't just ignore it once you diverge from your initial path. If you decide to change the ending, take the time to update your plot structure. And answer a few basic questions about what that change means for your characters and whether or not you need to change any details that you've written so far.

3. A Detailed Outline

While I still reserve the right to change my outline if it's no longer serving me, I have started writing much more detailed outlines.

That's partly because I'm writing books that are more complex. Since I write fantasy, I do a lot of world building. My settings require extensive thought and usually require a map. I want my worlds to feel real, which requires thinking about political structures, key people, and what's at stake for the entire world. For instance, in Darkling, I wrote an extensive history and god structure, but only parts of it made it into the book.

So, here's how I create a detailed outline:

• Pitch sentence. In one sentence, what is the book about?

• Character sketches. I sketch out every primary and secondary character in detail. Often, this is the part of my outline that I continue to update and modify the most as I write. I find it's easier for me to make characters feel real when I write them a little bit more "in the moment."

• Setting sketches. This can literally include a sketch of a map, but also includes descriptions of the major places in the fantasy world that my character will visit or hear about.

• Rough chapter framework. Although it often changes to be more or fewer chapters, I try to write out the basic scenes of the book, what characters are involved, and the emotional arcs of each chapter.

• (For multi-book series) How this book builds to the next book. I'm currently working on a project that I plan to be four books. So, it's important to give the primary characters in the next books the right amount of air time and build up until it's their time to shine. I map that out in the outline for each book.

Other Outlining Approaches

There are even more ways to outline a novel. This blog from Novel Factory does a great job of explaining a few other methods you might want to try.

What works for you? Let me know in the comments!