Outline Your Next Novel

When you're starting a new novel, there's always a brainstorming stage. You toss some ideas up on a whiteboard or onto the computer, toy with them, decide if they're a good fit or not, expand them, contract them, etc. At this stage, you're still feeling your way around the story. Your vision is broad and fuzzy, maybe built around a character you have in mind, maybe built around a concept you find interesting.

At some point in this process, you have a decision to make: do you outline the story or do you start writing.

There are two distinct thoughts on writing a book outline. The first is this: outline everything, from beginning to end, and your story will be more complex and more intricate, and your writing will go much faster because you'll never be faced with a blank sheet of paper wondering what comes next. The second thought on outlining is this: outline and your story will suffer from a lack of spontaneity and freshness, and your writing will be tedious and predictable.

Which one's right?

The truth is there is no right and wrong. In the right hands, either approach can work effectively. Stephen King doesn't outline his novels. Early in his career, Dean Koontz used to put together 40 page outlines before he started writing, though he has long sense put outlining aside. So the real question is this: which approach is right for you?

Here Are Some Considerations

How does the idea of outlining strike you? Are you one of those people who simply cringe at the idea of outlining a novel? Of course, we aren't talking about the outlining you did in high school, with a hierarchy of information that grinds down to smaller and smaller bits. We're talking about a layering of scenes, which comes first, how one feeds another, etc. Just the same, does the process of piecing everything together like an intricate puzzle excite you or depress you?

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Do you enjoy the editing process? The more you outline, the less editing you'll do after your first draft. Without an outline, you'll need to include an extra editing round or two in order to go back and add necessary scenes, delete unnecessary scenes, connect subplots to your major plot, and make sure everything fits properly.

How skilled are you in the craft of writing? The more skill and experience you have, the less you'll likely need to outline everything. If you have a good sense of your characters, a solid starting point and a fairly concrete idea for your ending, that may be all you need to get started writing.

How secure are you in not knowing what comes next? Writers are just everyday people. Some like to have the security of knowing exactly where the story's going, what scene comes next, and when the next turn will be. Others like to wing it. Which is you?

Can you trust your characters? If you're going to write without an ouline, then your story is going to evolve through your characters. This means you have to trust them, even when one of them comes up with something completely unexpected. You have to be willing to follow your characters instead of lead them. Sometimes theye'll take you to a whole new element of the story that works beautifully. Other times, they'll take you off in a direction and drop you off where there's no way back.

Do you mind tossing out pages? Without an outline, you're more likely to stray off the beaten path and find yourself in an impossible position. Which means you'll have to toss the pages that got you there and start over in a new direction. You might prefer to outline if tossing pages that took days to write strikes you as a fate worse than death.

The bottom line: outlining your novel is a choice only you can make. Once you have a good understanding of the way you prefer to work, the decision should be an easy one. Just keep in mind that whichever your decision, it's going to have plusses and minuses.