I am in the process of rewriting my novel, almost completely from scratch, and after many false starts and dead ends, I reached towards my bookshelf and reread Donald Maass' Breakout Novel book and workbook. At the end of his workbook he has a small section dedicated to creating an outline. After examining this and answering the questions for my novel, I have come up with an outline for the story that I am very excited about.
The outline doesn't follow the chronological events of the story but rather focuses on the important aspects of each characters journey, beginning with the protagonist and subsequently the BIG issues, and ending with the antagonist's view. Now this works at the moment because I can decipher what goes where and also because the draft isn't finished, certain events may change places with others. Its one of the reasons I like this outline. But when I begin querying agents, and if any ask for a detailed outline, would the outline I created work (with any necessary changes)? Or do the events need to be in order?
I realize it could be months to years before I have to face this particular problem, but I really am clueless as to what kind of outline agents/publisher's prefer. I really like this type of outlining as opposed to detailing the events in the story in the order that they happen but I am also striving for publication.
The outline doesn't follow the chronological events of the story but rather focuses on the important aspects of each characters journey, beginning with the protagonist and subsequently the BIG issues, and ending with the antagonist's view. Now this works at the moment because I can decipher what goes where and also because the draft isn't finished, certain events may change places with others. Its one of the reasons I like this outline. But when I begin querying agents, and if any ask for a detailed outline, would the outline I created work (with any necessary changes)? Or do the events need to be in order?
I realize it could be months to years before I have to face this particular problem, but I really am clueless as to what kind of outline agents/publisher's prefer. I really like this type of outlining as opposed to detailing the events in the story in the order that they happen but I am also striving for publication.
