Thread: How Do YOU Outline?

I usually write in what you call seat-of-the-pants writing , and I even finished one novel writing that way(now on its third rewriting), but now I found myself needing to make an outline because of the Graphic Novel I'm doing. since I'll (most probably) release it monthly for a year or two and I can't go back and rewrite earlier published issues, I'd probably need to make an outline of the scenes, plot points, and things like that, how should I go about it?

and the question is how YOU do it. I want some personal experiences, because some of the things in the internet, I already have in my hard drive(like the snowflake method and other stuff like that in the net).

Outlining isn't a complicated thing that requires investigation. You write down the plot of a story before you write it. The level of detail will vary depending on what you want to do, but that's all there is to it. Anything more is making it more involved than it needs to be.

I don't. I attempted something like that with the last novel. I wrote out scenes on index cards. Just anything that popped into my mind and could possibly fit into the novel. I knew the ending already but I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get there. I ended up with a bunch of useless scenes but a lot of them fit into a time line completely unplanned. So that ended up being my outline. Each scene was a chapter and I just lined them up. I did end up adding in more after I started writing and things changed along the way. I cut a couple of the chapters. But it worked out okay for an experiment.

I don't do a formal 'outline' in the strictest sense of the word - but I do write down what I want to cover and accomplish chapter by chapter. Even if the final product doesn't quite match my 'outline', at least the breakdown of things keeps me focused on the plot and moving in a consistent direction.

Also, because the story flow is sometimes mutable (i.e. elements get introduced or mentioned that I hadn't considered at the time of the outline), I'll keep a running tab of story notes to reference, so I can be sure not to leave some tidbit with its bare arse hanging out the window.

I just sort of know where I'm going.

Then I start writing, and go straight to the place I was going with the ending, and then I start exploring the consequences afterwards. It seems to work for me.

I, too, 'just sort of know where I'm going,' and when I get there I stop. My outlining days ended when I left university. I have the I, II, III, A, B, C, in my head and to stop and write it out would be a total waste of time. Outlining is useful in school to get you used to organising your thoughts before you start to write, but after that it serves no purpose.

Maybe I'm over analyzing outlines. But I just can't seem to prioritize the scenes I'm writing, and I'm somehow flooded with plot points and 'revelations' that I can't seem to organize them. It's also the first time I'm writing a story with more than one protagonist, so I'm kinda overloaded with info right now. I mean it's easy for me to organize a story with one leading character, now that I have five or six MC's things can get a bit out of hand. Like, oh man, I forgot to resolve this issue for char 1, and char 2 still needs to go to the dentist! How do you deal with this?

That's exactly why I summarize my chapters the way I do. That way I can spell out all the little plot twists I intend to drop in. Of course, when I get around to writing things, my editor usually takes this and that and tells me to save them for later. Ultimately, though, the goal for me is to lay out the scenes so they make sense. Timing isn't necessarily everything, but it can be a lot.

Originally Posted by darknite_johanne

Maybe I'm over analyzing outlines. But I just can't seem to prioritize the scenes I'm writing, and I'm somehow flooded with plot points and 'revelations' that I can't seem to organize them. It's also the first time I'm writing a story with more than one protagonist, so I'm kinda overloaded with info right now. I mean it's easy for me to organize a story with one leading character, now that I have five or six MC's things can get a bit out of hand. Like, oh man, I forgot to resolve this issue for char 1, and char 2 still needs to go to the dentist! How do you deal with this?

My last novel had a dozen main characters. I separated their POVs and timelines with different chapters. For instance, two of my MCs were computer programmers working in New York. Another two were Marines being shipped home after a lengthy tour in Afghanistan. Then I had two terrorists on a plane from Russia. Then I had another terrorist in the States awaiting their arrival. I had several law enforcement officers working on different leads throughout the country. Then I had the President and his Cabinet making decisions about varying things. I had the Secretary of Defence off doing things on his own. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was trying to find out what. Then I had a deep-cover agent trying to get back to America to warn his superiors about an imminent attack.

I didn't outline any of it. I find outlines to be restrictive. I like to let the novel write itself, so to speak. I'd advise you to get your hands on novels which utilise numerous plot lines and POVs. Tom Clancy is the master of this technique; Robert Ludlum somewhat less so. It's not an easy task. Some writers will struggle because there's a lot to remember. So make another document and summarise what each character has done thus far.

There's nothing really else you can do.

I just wrote out a long synopsis for my novel, sort of an artless play by play -- this happens and then this happens, he does this this, she does that. Then I parsed it out roughly into chapters. I guess you'd call it an outline. I refer to it, but I also revise it as I go along, so nothing's etched in stone. When I'm finished with the thing and it's published, then I'll be able to tell you whether or not it worked. Everyone arrives at his or her own method eventually, mostly by trail and error. I don't know that anyone can tell you how to do it.

Everyone arrives at his or her own method eventually, mostly by trail and error. I don't know that anyone can tell you how to do it.

I think that's probably true of all 'systems' in writing and editing. Try everything you can find. Eventually you will get one that actually works for you.

Sorry, that's not very helpful. Maybe this will help.

Last year I wrote a thirteen part drama serial with six main characters. I did it much like Sam is describing above actually. I had one main time line with several story arcs in, I had page counts and plot breakdowns as well because for a TV show you need to have arcs within arcs and a beginning, middle and end to each episode. You could (just as a thought) have a beginning middle and end to each chapter (even if the end is a cliffhanger).

I then chose a goal, an ending if you will. Basically, a problem that needed to be resolved before the end of the series. It didn't need to be my actual ending but the characters did need to resolve something before the series finished. When that was done I put 6 timelines under the main time line, one for each character, and plotted out the movements of the characters over the thirteen weeks. I then worked in my antagnoist (I only had one in this instance) in the same way.

Finally I wrote a scene by scene breakdown of each episode, trying to make sure that the first thing that happened in each episode was something that brought our characters closer to there goal and the last thing that happened was something that took them further away from them. I then had to worry about advert breaks so I scheduled in dramatic points at the following intervals: 10min, 30min, 50min. I could then shift my characters' actions around on the time line until they fit the structure that I wanted for each episode.

It actually didn't take me very long to do that. Probably about 6 hours. I had the opportunity to re-write things if there was a problem later on but, apart from one or two scenes, I didn't need to.

Take from this what you will, it is only one way to go about it.

Originally Posted by Sam W

My last novel had a dozen main characters. I separated their POVs and timelines with different chapters. For instance, two of my MCs were computer programmers working in New York. Another two were Marines being shipped home after a lengthy tour in Afghanistan. Then I had two terrorists on a plane from Russia. Then I had another terrorist in the States awaiting their arrival. I had several law enforcement officers working on different leads throughout the country. Then I had the President and his Cabinet making decisions about varying things. I had the Secretary of Defence off doing things on his own. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was trying to find out what. Then I had a deep-cover agent trying to get back to America to warn his superiors about an imminent attack.

I didn't outline any of it. I find outlines to be restrictive. I like to let the novel write itself, so to speak. I'd advise you to get your hands on novels which utilise numerous plot lines and POVs. Tom Clancy is the master of this technique; Robert Ludlum somewhat less so. It's not an easy task. Some writers will struggle because there's a lot to remember. So make another document and summarise what each character has done thus far.

There's nothing really else you can do.

Wow! this is impressive. I'll try that.


Thanks all for your very helpful suggestions. I'll try my best.

I tell myself the story over and over and gradually it picks up complexity, sometimes I tell other people, but after a bit there are only a few who want to listen.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

I tell myself the story over and over and gradually it picks up complexity, sometimes I tell other people, but after a bit there are only a few who want to listen.

I can relate, that's why I don't tell them stories unless it's a joke.

I have only a very rudimentary outline. It's a simple list of scenes. The starting point (Point A) and the projected ending (point B) are there and a list of 5-10 scenes that are necessary for the journey from point A to point B to make sense. Sitting down and writing is finding how to connect the necessary scenes.