By Here’s how to write the best novel outline: Write something.
Any outline is better than no outline.
But for more guidance, I outlined 6 easy steps in glorious detail.
Should you write an outline for a novel? You should write an outline when writing your book.
Even if it isn’t the most detailed outline, outlining your story has many benefits:
Don’t feel trapped by an outline. Your novel outline is meant as a guide, a map. You can veer from it any time you want… change your mind… be spontaneous.
No matter what — you need an outline for your novel. It will make you a better writer.
You'll need to choose a software to write it as well, and I've got a video all about that too.
Links in this article may give me a small commission if you use them to purchase a product. And there’s no extra cost to you!
A novel outline is a document or series of documents that plan out your novel’s structure, plot, character arcs, spatial relationships, the order of sequences, and so much more.
You need a novel outline to avoid problems with pacing, plot holes, directionless writing, and writer’s block.
Some of my favorite novel outline templates include:
Every good outline should answer these 3 questions:
Be sure to check out this video about Alfred Hitchcock On Mastering Cinematic Tension too.
A novel outline is essential because it gives your story direction, avoids a “mid-novel slump,” saves time in the editing process, and so many other reasons.
Once you’ve written many books, maybe you can write less of a physical novel outline because you have so much of the outline in your head.
But new writers need to write a novel outline. In the next section, I tell you all about the benefits of writing a novel outline. Read all those reasons to write an outline, and then tell me you don’t want to reap any of the benefits.
I hear the outline deniers ask, “Did you know Stephen King doesn’t outline his novels? He sells one million books every day, or something like that. So that means I don’t have to outline.”
Well, Stephen King has also said that you need to write 12 full-length books before you can sell one. (Maybe he should have used an outline when he began as a writer.)
Also, Stephen King does outline — only it’s in his head because he’s a master storyteller.
And doesn’t Stephen King get flack all the time for writing bad endings to his great books? Maybe an outline would help him build to better conclusions…
What are the pros of creating a novel outline?
In almost every case, you need a novel outline. Some authors are supposedly born with the “gift” of knowing everything about their story in their heads. In my experience, these writers simply go through a more extended editing phase without an outline.
What are the cons of creating a novel outline?
I’m writing these downsides as if I actually believe them. However, I disagree that many of these downsides are correct — only that some authors may feel this way sometimes.
However, when you’re writing the story’s actual words, it is important to “show, don’t tell” and make your characters’ choices seem logical, plausible, and organic.
How long does it take to outline a novel? It can take months to outline a novel. Sometimes, authors start writing the beginning before they’ve outlined the end. Others wait till they have a good idea of the whole book’s story. The outlining process may involve brainstorming before you write a single word of the physical outline.
You can structure an outline for a novel any way you’d like — whatever outlining method works for your novel writing style.
But you should organize your thoughts into a formal structure, or your novel will probably end up an unevenly-paced stream of consciousness that few people enjoy all the way through.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat (can someone please explain what that means?). And there’s more than one way to outline your novel. Pick the type of novel outline that works best for you and your writing process.
Authors may fall anywhere on a spectrum of planners and non-planners, also called plotters and pantsers, or architects and gardeners. (“Pantsing” refers to “by the seat of your pants.”)
Your outline may be meticulous or very vague. The level of detail depends on personal preference, and that's okay.
Here are 6 types of novel outlines you can experiment with:
A mind map visually displays the spatial relationship between characters, story beats, and chapters. You can map out any number of story elements.
This is an excellent method for large-scale stories where characters are in different locations throughout the novel. Epic fantasy and sci-fi come to mind, but political thrillers may also benefit from a mind map outline.
A synopsis outline looks the most like an essay. When you write a synopsis, you need to summarize everything that matters to the story.
It will include character arcs, conflicts, resolutions, and background info. A synopsis should be 2 or 3 pages of dense story.
To make that into a full novel, you just take a sentence or a paragraph from the synopsis and add suspense, mystery, character development, world-building, and beautiful prose — all that delicious “filler” that makes reading fun.
This type of novel outline lists the “beats” of the story into individual paragraphs or bullet points.
A “beat” is a change in tone, motivation, character, etc. Whenever you switch to a new story beat, this adds emotional weight and importance to your story. Beats also help with pacing and character arcs.
Since story beats are so important, it is natural for some writers to break up their outline by beats.
This is probably the most bare-bones approach. (Forgive the pun) A skeleton outline lists out the key plot points in a story.
For example, your main character needs to get from her hometown to the capital city, to the enemy hideout, and finally to her wayward father’s hovel. A skeleton outline would remind you what direction your story needs to be going, but it lets you figure out the best way to get there.
If you care about the people in your story, their development, and their arcs more than anything else, focus on your characters.
A character-led outline puts characters first. List out the beats in your character arcs. Instead of overall plot points, you can organize your novel into character development beats.
Or, try free-writing about your character using a stream of consciousness approach, writing whatever comes to mind about your character. See what you discover.
Check out this template for character profiles or this tutorial/cheat sheet.
List out all the scenes and sequences in your story. This outline can be detailed or vague.
I know authors who outline by chapter, listing each event that needs to occur in a chapter for the story to progress in the right direction. For some chapters, they write down 2 pages of notes. For other chapters, they only write, “Protagonist needs to solve the mystery in an emotional way.”
Some authors may benefit from taking notes on scenes as they pop into their heads. These scenes can be out of order, but you can use a scenes and sequences outline to order them when you get around to it.
I use Atticus to write all my fiction books, but it’s not for everyone. There is a myriad of methods you can use to outline your novel.
A lot of authors choose to outline their novel in a different software than their book writing software
Some writing software offers a bunch of handy built-in templates that help the outlining process. But many authors prefer software designed explicitly for outlining.
And don’t forget: If you like using a physical notebook and pencil, more power to you. There is an undoubtable magic when you create a story putting pencil to paper, lead to ledger, graphite to graph paper
Check out this video where I break down the best story outlining software out there.
You can outline a novel with 6 easy steps:
Of course, there are many methods to outlining. Use these step-by-step instructions as a roadmap, not a hard and fast list of must-dos.
The premise of your novel should guide your outline, just like the outline will guide your writing. It follows that step 1 is creating the premise for your novel.
To create a good story, you must have a good premise. To create the premise of your novel, you should start your book outline by writing down the following:
Now, you can craft a one-sentence premise of your book. Think of it as an elevator pitch.
You’re able to tell anyone in 30 seconds what your story is about.
When someone asks what your book is about, you should be able to answer with one or two sentences that hook any potential readers, editors, agents, and/or publishers.
Examples of 5 effective premises:
After you’ve created the premise, it’s time to craft the setting of your story. The setting is the “where?” of the story.
The setting should be:
When crafting your setting, consider the time of year, the seasons, the time of day for individual scenes, and how your character views the setting vs. how it is in reality.
Brainstorm how the characters’ introductions, midpoints, turning points, and conclusions can be improved by the setting.
WikiHow has a fun article I recommend on this topic: How to Write a Setting for a Book: 9 Steps (with Pictures).
The currency of novels is character.
Readers relate to your characters and cheer when the good guy gets what they want. If you want an effective novel outline, you should construct your characters at this stage.
Since the most satisfying part of a book for most readers is a great character arc, you should know the basics of character development.
Give each central character:
Yes, you can source your characters from real life. For instance, you may base your character’s looks on a woman you used to work with. You might even base your character’s mannerisms on a celebrity.
However, do not base one character entirely off of one person. Take inspiration from multiple real people.
Now that you’ve got a handle on your characters, 2 things need to happen:
Pro tip: Though some criticize Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat book for its oversimplification of storytelling, its central story idea is still sound. For any character you want to be likable, have their first action in the story be to “save the cat” — or do good for someone else, preferably in a weaker position than them.
When a character saves a cat from a tree, buys a homeless orphan a meal, protects a woman from an abusive husband, blows the whistle on a corrupt politician, etc., the reader immediately roots for them.
Now that you have your premise, setting, and characters, you can start to develop a plot outline. It helps to have a plot structure (templates included below), especially if you’re a new author.
You can develop your plot by making index cards, drawing a rough timeline on a sheet of paper, or using many awesome novel outlining tools. Many authors find it useful to write down their beginning at one end of some notebook paper and their conclusion at the other end. Then they fill in the blanks of how their characters get there.
For complicated stories, a sprawling cast, multiple point of view characters, and huge worlds, you may want to organize your plots and subplots by time and location — as J.K. Rowling did with Order of the Phoenix.
For this step, you can use any of these templates (or none of them):
Below, I’ve included questions to answer for the beginning, middle, and end of your story’s plot — a fundamental version of the 3-act structure.
Pro tip: Do not start your book off with a cliche. Some readers — and most editors — will put down your book if they read the first page and it contains waking up, looking in a mirror, lots of dialogue, a big block of exposition, or a dream sequence.
After you develop your plot, you can organize plot points into acts, then into chapters, and even into scenes.
This might get too specific for some authors who prefer to fly by the seat of their pants. But organizing your plot into individual chapters or scenes can prevent writer’s block before it even strikes.
Scenes are critical to your story. They should determine pacing, transition smoothly into one another, prevent timeline problems or plot holes, build on your central premise or theme, and organize your plot into digestible chunks.
Your story isn’t perfect. Your outline is flexible. Remember that your story outline is a living document. You’ll review your outline and make changes along the way. Don’t be afraid to alter your outline.
Bestselling author George R.R. Martin isn’t the biggest outliner. However, it’s still notable that in a novel as intricate as The Winds of Winter, he famously came up with a twist years into writing it, long after he would have made his general outline.
As you learn more about your characters, your world, and what is most interesting about your story, your outline will change in small ways all the time. There will even be some big changes.
When you review your outline, you may want to consider adding specific dates to your scenes and chapters. You may not write these dates in the text, but your readers must trust you to make logical decisions about the timeline.
One of the magical things about novel outlines is that an outline is you can review it frequently and make small and big changes as needed. When reviewing your outline, pay attention to:
These beautiful handwritten outlines are examples of actual novel outlines by authors you may have heard of…
After reading this article, you should be more than ready to write your novel outline! Once you’ve written your outline, onto the first draft.
How do you write a proper outline? You write a proper outline how you want — you can plan meticulous details or give yourself a vague direction to aim for. There are different types of outlines for different types of fiction writers, such as the mind map, the scenes and sequences, the skeleton, and synopsis.
I’ve provided you with templates, screenshots, and lists of outline types to help get you on track to write an extraordinary story.
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