How to Begin a Novel Outline
Whether you’re a panster or a plotter or somewhere in between, you need to have an idea of your story’s plot, why your characters are on their Missions Impossible, and what will happen when everything comes together at the end.
A novel outline can help you organize your big ideas so that you can be sure you actually have a story in play before you start your rough draft.
This article will provide you with tips to start outlining your novel so that you can understand the central conflict of your story, hit all the plot highlights, and introduce engaging characters who grab our attention from beginning to end—all before you begin your first draft.
Let's hop to it!
WHAT IS A NOVEL OUTLINE?
First off, let me say I am not a fan of the term “outline,” because it’s too academic and antiseptic. But because that’s the word most writers understand, that’s the word I’m using to kick off the conversation.
For my own purposes, I use the term “Discovery” because that’s exactly how my creative process unfolds. I discover my characters, their reasons for their journeys, the cause and effect of their actions and behaviors, the lessons they need to learn, and how they go about snagging their story goals.
The other reason I prefer “Discovery” is that it helps me stay unattached to my initial ideas—so, fewer Little Darlings. I understand at the outset that initial ideas are easy, quick, and dirty ideas. If I want to write something compelling, I have to discover deeper. This may take a few rounds.
WHY OUTLINING IS IMPORTANT
Most writers understand an outline to be a process by which they break down their big story idea into smaller, bite-sized pieces before they actually write the first draft. For some, outlining can seem as though it takes all the fun out of writing because the map of the story is pieced together through questions and answers rather than organic flow. For others, outlining is an efficient methodology that allows the writer to see the threads, turning points, and possible plot holes before the story is pulled together, thereby allowing the writer room to shift things around as needed, saving them oodles of revision time.
Regardless of whether you’re a fan of outlining, at some point, you need to look at the story with a mechanic’s eye: Does the story work? Why or why not? What is causing the problem(s)? What are some ways I can fix the problems? Can the story be read by a neutral party with sincere enjoyment? Why or why not? How can I fix the story so that readers devour it hungrily?
These kinds of questions are best answered through critical assessments that are as far from Turkish Delights as you can get. Yeah, it can be a tedious, life-sucking process, but without it, you run the risk of creating a story that might be loved by you—but few others will share your passion for it.
So, let’s talk about some of the things you should consider when putting an outline together.
BIG-PICTURE ELEMENTS
I think it helps to start with a bird’s-eye view of your story, and then work your way down.
Some big-picture questions include: What is my story about? Who are the main characters? What is the central conflict? What is my setting? Why are my characters on this journey? What’s the genre? What kind of mood or tone do I want to go with? What about my story will be meaningful to my readers?
Depending on how much work or thinking you’ve done on your story, your answers may be vague. That’s okay. These questions will always be relevant, so keep a list of them close by and you can refer to it while you work. It can actually be fun and educational to see how your answers evolve over time, so if you can, keep a running document and date it as you go. I keep mine in a journal so it’s easy to flip through pages to see how things have changed.
HOMING IN ON YOUR CENTRAL CONFLICT
Your story should have one main conflict with smaller subsets of conflict spurring from it. The central conflict tells readers what the story is about. However, it’s easy to go off-track from that main conflict once your story takes off and more and more ideas come to the party.
A helpful question to help you keep your wits about you while you write: “Who is fighting whom over what and why?”
The answer to this question will provide you with key pieces of your story:
1.| Protagonist (Who)
2.| Antagonist (Whom)
3.| Central Conflict (What)
4.| Motivation/Reason for the fight (Why)
Again, the earlier you are in the process of getting to know your story, the more vague your answer will be. As your story (and your understanding of it) evolve, the sharper this answer will become—sharp enough, even, to become a marvelous premise statement.
MAIN CHARACTER’S JOURNEY
Explore your main character’s inner and outer journey to begin seeding the path they will take from beginning to end.
What is your character’s story goal?
What obstacles get in the way?
List 3 big events where your character must make a difficult choice.
What is at stake with either choice?
What is the Status-Quo World?
What is the Adventure World?
What big moment (Inciting Incident) launches your character from their Status-Quo World to their Adventure World?
Can they say NO to the Inciting Incident? If your answer is YES, then you need to either:
Raise the stakes
Add a secondary event that gives your MC no chance of refusal
Give your character a main flaw.
What is your character’s ghost?
What is your character’s flawed belief?
What will your character risk? What won’t they risk?
What lesson does your character need to learn?
Does your character learn their lesson by the end of the book and how does this affect their arc?
You can use the above questions for any character who has a POV role in your story. Reread anything you’ve come up with and then pepper each idea with “what if” questions.
What if Character A does this instead?
What if the story opens here?
What if Character B finds out the truth earlier?
What if the Antagonist has this secret?
The “what if” questions are totally dependent on what you’re writing. The objective is to not be afraid to DISCOVER deeper. You’re not committed to anything at this point, so take advantage of your creative freedom.
SETTING
Time and space are your setting, and while you should have a clear sense of where and when your story takes place, be careful about hooking into details too early. If those details are the kind that lock you into an event that hasn’t yet been shown as pivotal to your story, then you run the risk of creating aspects to your world that doesn’t fit your characters’ goals. At this early stage it’s good to be clear on the purpose and mission of your setting, but be fluid with the details and how your setting will work from chapter to chapter.
When you select a setting, ask yourself why that setting is necessary. If you can’t come up with a significant reason for that setting, then you can flag it for now, change it now, or even do some serious discovery work on it.
Settings should be chosen with care. Each one should be meaningful to your story, and each one should serve a specific purpose. However, spending time on setting (especially for sci-fi and fantasy writers) can launch you down a rabbit hole and turn into major research. So, just be mindful of how much time you’re spending on this storytelling element.
POV & TENSE
Decide on your point of view and your tense before you begin your rough draft to save you major revision headaches later. If you’re on the fence with which viewpoint or tense to use, then pick a scene and write it once in first-person and then rewrite the same scene in third-person. (For new or inexperienced writers, I would avoid trying second-person POV.)
For tense, write the same scene once in present tense and once in past tense.
Which style did you enjoy the most?
Which one flowed better?
Keeping genre and reader expectations in mind, do your choices make sense or are you taking some risks? Totally cool if you’re taking some risks, but be sure you’re doing so with quality writing in mind. When in doubt, get some feedback!
SCENES
Some people like to incorporate scenes into their outlines, and while I hesitate to go all in with detail during Discovery, I admit scenes can be a wonderful way to bust through any creative blocks you might be having because they’re so much fun to write. One way to double-check your scenes for whether they fulfill the mission of your story is to ask the following questions:
What is your character’s goal?
What is your character’s motive?
What is the obstacle that impedes your character?
If you come across a scene that doesn’t turn (that remains flat), just flag it during your Discovery phase. You may be able to find ways to strengthen it when you learn more about your story, or it may be that this scene works better as narrative.
THEME
Some writers prefer their theme to arise organically, while others purposefully weave it into the story. Either way, you want your theme to be understated and not preachy.
To find your theme, look to your main character’s flawed belief. The lesson they need to learn will give you clues to help you come up with a theme that feels natural to the story.
I wouldn’t worry too much about developing the theme in your Discovery stage so much as just being aware of its potential. When you start constructing scenes and pulling everything together, the theme will take shape naturally. Through revision you can expand or compress as needed.
CONFLICT 2.0
Yes, I realize we already went over conflict, but this time I want to mention it as it relates to the page-turning potential of your story.
If your characters aren’t faced with tough decisions that carry consequences, then your story is low in conflict. Every page needs to have some level of tension—every page. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to have cars exploding on each page. It does mean that your characters need to be dealing with inner conflict and outer conflict, and these two kinds of conflict should impact each other throughout the story.
Inner Conflict = Character versus Self. It’s my stance that character versus self should always be prevalent in a story. Things should never be easy for a character to handle emotionally, and their morality should be tested.
Outer Conflict = Character versus any external source
Character versus Character
Character versus Authority
Character versus Society/Community
Character versus Nature
Character versus God/Faith
Character versus Supernatural
Character versus World/Universe
External conflicts can escalate into bigger, more dramatic conflicts. If you have a scene where your character is arguing about a new school rule with their best friend (Character versus Character), you might see an opportunity where this argument puts your character in conflict with his entire high school class (Character versus Society/Community).
Outlining a novel often happens in phases. Where writing a story can take multiple drafts, so can outlining or discovery. So, it might help you to pre-arrange your outlining process in three or more takes. For instance, you could say Discovery Phase 1 will take place in January; put the draft away for two weeks in February; Discovery Phase 2 will take place second half of February to mid-March; put draft away till end of March; Discovery Phase 3 will occur for the month of April.
A rhythm of discovery-rest-discovery-rest can often provide clarity and objectivity as opposed to immersing oneself for 90+ days straight with no breaks.
However—you do you! Your process MUST align with your natural writing forces. How do you work best? Under what conditions does your creativity and productivity thrive? How can you schedule your time so that you are working to your strengths?
DO YOU LIKE TO OUTLINE OR ARE YOU A “WING IT” KIND OF WRITER?
LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS!
HAVE A WRITERLY DAY!