I am not sure on how to write an outline for my novel?

I'd like to help you, but I never bothered to outline properly either. Instead, I would write a few paragraphs detailing what I wanted to cover in each scene. When I was done, I started from scene 1 and expanded upon what I had already written.

There's no proper way, there's just what will work for you. What works for some other person might not work for you. You might find that you like working with an outline or that you prefer to write without one. Only way to find out which you prefer is to try.

Suggestion: take a look at some of the Outlining threads in the Novels forum to get some ideas on how people format their outlines. Also, take a look at the original "Learn Writing with Uncle Jim" thread. Lots of good information there.

Welcome to AW! Good luck with your writing!

Do you really need to? I can't work to an outline. It's too restrictive. My mind is too active and there are so many new ideas popping up while I'm writing, an outline would be a stricture. If you're worried about writing an outline, just start writing the story. If you find you cant'd do it that way, then write an outline.

An outline has several uses:
I have two separate outlining methods: a plot-level method, and a character-level method. I find it useful to start with the second one and then gradually move to the first. So here's a recipe for character-level outlining...

1. Identify the major characters in your story. (These are the characters that face major challenges, conflicts and the prospect of change.). Make sure that you understand them physically, socially, psychologically before you proceed.
2. Pick a character. Find the event that first changes its life and gets it involved in the story. Start your outline here. Summarise the event, how the character feels, what the character believes, wants and how it reacts.
3. Pick the next event that changes what the character wants, believes, or has a major impact on how it feels about itself. Summarise the event and any changes to the character, its goals and methods. Summarise too anything the character has achieved of its earlier goal in the meantime.
4. Continue until whatever first provoked the character to get involved in the story is now discharged. It's either gotten what it wanted or changed so that it no longer wants that.
5. Pick another major character and repeat

This method produces some sort of step-plan -- one for each character. Typically a major character might go through five to ten major changes in a novel, and perhaps two or three in a short. You might have two or three major characters in a short, and maybe two to eight in a novel. You can produce a sort of chart with the characters in columns. You can begin to see how causes and effects might link between each character, so you can line related related events up in rows. Some rows might have only one event. Some might have several.

This step-plan lets you see whether the character changes are credible, interesting, contain the right sorts of contrasts. Once you have that you can do an outline for your plot.

My favourite plot outline is a scene-level outline. I write a few lines per scene. It's a summary of location/stimulus/response/outcome for each of the major characters in the scene, e.g.

...

3. Sneaking out of home at night to meet his girlfriend, Bob is spotted by his sister Cherie and offers her a bribe to keep her from telling. Realising that Bob is serious about Gloria, Cherie finds an opportunity to make mischief.

4. When Gloria doesn't show at their meeting-place beneath the bridge, Bob returns home worried. The next day at school he faces an angry Gloria who demands to know why Bob wanted to meet at the dump instead. Unable to explain, Bob finds himself dumped.

5. At home, an angry and depressed Bob confronts Cherie, who confesses to having swapped SIM-cards in Bob's cellphone so she could text Gloria. He demands that she confess to Gloria, and Cherie reluctantly agrees. But when they go around to Gloria's place, Bob finds that she never returned home from school.

...

It's important that each scene outline contains location, emotion, motive, the stimulus that created that motive, a goal and an outcome. It's also important that every stimulus arises from something that has happened in a previous scene.

Often a single entry in the step-plan may unpack to several scenes. A novel might have 70+ scenes; a short might have 1-12

Hope that helps.

There really isn't a correct way to write an outline, although some folks enjoy having their outlines very structured and organized.

My outlines are very general descriptions of how the story begins, what the main characters are (usually) like, and how I will get them from Plot Point A to Plot Point B to Plot Point C, and so on. That is, I concoct plausible excuses for them to do the things I need them to do. I write up my vague ideas about these behaviors and their consequences, generally in the order in which I want them to appear in the novel, and I figure out how to tie everything together in the end.

Then I start writing, and usually things depart quite a bit from the outline. But it's always there to remind me of my original ideas for the story, in case I want to revert or in case I need to rethink the plot.

That's my method, anyway. Yours may vary, and that's perfectly fine. You don't have to follow any set formula or method.

I like these

I started with fewer things known than would make a full outline. I took the big things I knew I wanted and put them on index cards. Some were character-related things; some were plot points that I really wanted to include.

I thought about those for a while and compared them to other questions that popped up. Or a new idea - would it fit anywhere?

I built the outline all the way to the end at first, leaving the beginning and end blurry because I feel like I need to write the main part of the story first. I have sinced lost my ending, but that's OK. I only lost it because of better ideas

So mine's a mixture. I still love the ability to organize thoughts on the work that boil down to big chunks: themes, some symbolism, mostly what I'm trying to do with it - goals for the story and specific scenes, I guess.

Ruv Draba ~
Your method would be prove very advantageous when writing the dreaded synopsis! The hard part is already done...

I use two types of outlines. One is a basic one sentence per event outline that shows the story arcs, act climaxes and set pieces (all the important plot advancing events in the book), and the others is a chapter by chapter one paragraph summary of what happens.

My basic outline looks something like:

Opening scene (how the story opens)
Inciting event (the event that put the protag on the path to the core conflict of the story)
Act one problem (the first major problem that launches act two (the middle of the book) and shows the protag things are harder than they thought)
Mid-point reversal (the event that happens in the middle of the book that sends the story sideways in a unexpected way)
Act two problem (the event that shakes things up yet again and makes the protag realize the stakes are a lot higher than they first thought)
Act three problem (launches showdown with the antag)
Climax (protag faces off against antag)
Wrap up (how it ends)

Knowing these pieces gives me a basic framework to work toward without pre-writing it, so I get to keep spontaneity and let the characters run the show.

My paragraph outline is just a rough summary (sometimes a line if I'm not sure yet) of what happens in each chapter. I usually stick to how the chapter opens, what goal or problem my protag has, what they do to solve that problem, why it's important (the stakes) and what goes wrong at the end of the chapter. Again, it's a framework in which to put the story into.

As everyone has mentioned, there's no right or wrong way to outline, it's just finding something that works for you. Alexandra Sokoloff has a fantastic series on the Three Act Structure that I find incredibly helpful when planning a book. It can appear formulaic, but remember, you don't have to do everything exactly the way she says. Mix it up so it fits the kinds of stories you like to tell. But it does remind you to think about things that can really help organize a story.

Doing an outline is not a guarantee of success in writing a story - and not outlining is no indication or guarantee of failure.

Writing an outline is not an absolute pre-requisite to writing a story. Some folks outline -some folks don't.

Same as going on holiday. Some folk plan everything for each day along the way - others just wander out of the hotel and take each day as it comes.

An outline is simply a rough guide as to where one feels the story is going and how it may get there. It can be as rough or as detailed as you want it to be.

In other words do whatever you feel you have to do.

AngelSooyung said:

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I only have vague knowledge on how to write an outline, so it can only go so far.​

How should I go about writing it properly?​

Sorry if I sound unintelligent for asking this, but it had to be done.​

-AngelSooyung​

Click to expand...

There's no single way to outline correctly. The goal of an outline is to have major scenes, characters and events clearly in mind before you start investing actual time in writing the manuscript. (And those people who find it too restrictive forget you can step away from the outline). Just make sure you know what the major points of the story are and add to the outline as you go along. After a couple of stories you know what you need to include to make it work for you.

The correct way to do an outline is the one that works best for you. If you think you need one for your book, experiment with different kinds to find what will actually help.

What I'm using on my current project (I'm still in the experimentation stage):

A synopsis of about a thousand words with the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Then I pull out the key events and answer three questions about them (where did the character come from; where does the character go from here; and what do I need to make the scene happen. I'm thinking of answering these questions for the other main character as well). From that, I'll do a progression, probably by reasons (why does something happen).

As everyone has mentioned, there's no right or wrong way to outline, it's just finding something that works for you. Alexandra Sokoloff has a fantastic series on the Three Act Structure that I find incredibly helpful when planning a book. It can appear formulaic, but remember, you don't have to do everything exactly the way she says. Mix it up so it fits the kinds of stories you like to tell. But it does remind you to think about things that can really help organize a story.

Click to expand...

After years of reading, I'm beginning to think the three act structure isn't "formulaic" as much as it is "archetypal". It's a pattern, and it's there because it's inherent in stories, in nature, in real-life... Every story, whether introspective or action-driven, will always seem incomplete or a bit "off" without the three-act structure. Heck, I could identify a three-act structure with all those plot points even in James Joyce's "Ulysses"!

The real question is why are you trying to outline your story?

Are you just starting on a new novel, or are you stuck in the middle of one?

Or is this a general question because you have a pile of unfinished manuscripts that became bogged-down in the middle?

If you've already written most of it, then you'll need to break your MS down into small sections and list what you have. That will help you find your way forward.

If you're just starting out on a new project,then Danthia (above) has the right idea.

If you're really stuck in the middle of a novel, you can take The Hardest Option: I've written some of my novels out as screenplays, which helped me cut out extraneous scenes and improved the final products to no end, but it's not for the faint of heart.