How to Outline Your Novel Step-By-Step

If you are a plotter who prefers to prepare before writing, so you are not surprised during the writing process, you will likely want to outline your novel. Even if you are a “pantser” who prefers to write instinctually, letting blind chance decide where your story will go, an outline can serve as a fallback resource if you ever get stuck. But what is the best way to outline your novel step-by-step? There are many strategies, but I will guide you through a six-step structure and a slightly longer nine-step structure.

Six-Step Structure

1. Fit the idea for your novel into one sentence. For example, a Black female scientist must triumph over ingrained prejudices within her profession’s culture to research a cure for a rare disease and publish her research for the masses.
2. Choose a story structure for your novel. There are many types of story structures, but every effective story will feature an open, an inciting incident, several crises that build tension, a climax, and a conclusion. Some popular story structures include author Dean Koontz’s Classic Story Structure, the Hero’s Journey, the Three-Act structure, In Media Res (starting in the middle of something happening), and the 7-Point Story Structure (hook, first plot turn, first pinch point, midpoint, second pinch point, second plot turn, resolution)
3. Familiarize yourself with your novel’s characters. In other words, develop your characters by mapping out their backstories. This is key to creating a successful story. The characters should be flawed and vulnerable because most readers do not identify with a perfect person. Eventually, the characters can inspire readers by triumphing over their obstacles, but they must start from a point of identifiable humanity.
4. Flesh out your novel’s plot. A story’s plot roughly consists of the beginning, middle, and end. A compelling plot will keep the reader turning the pages until reaching the conclusion, while a mediocre one will cause the reader to set the book aside. There are seven plot types you can choose from:
5. Adventure: the protagonist faces many obstacles on a quest to novel places, encountering many new experiences in the process
6. Change: the protagonist experiences a dramatic transformation
7. Mistake: the innocent protagonist is trapped in a situation they do not understand, and must evade danger and defeat enemies to escape the trap
8. Lure: the protagonist must decide whether to surrender to fury, revenge, temptation, or another passion. The protagonist grows while discovering new aspects of themselves.
9. Gift: the ordinary protagonist sacrifices themselves to help another. That protagonist might not be cognizant of their heroism until they rise to the occasion.
10. Race: the protagonist chases fame or wealth but must battle others to succeed
11. Romance: misunderstandings and jealousy complicate the protagonists’ relationship and prevent their happiness

No matter what story structure you choose, the goal is to grab the reader’s attention and keep it until the story’s conclusion, so every word must count.

• Choose your novel’s setting. Along with characters, a story’s setting is one of the most essential elements. Through it, you can show the story world rather than simply telling the reader about it. In keeping with that “show, don’t tell” mentality, it is better to weave the setting into the narrative rather than simply describing through long passages of text. In this manner, aspects of the setting can subtly influence the reader’s perception while they primarily focus on the dialogue and action that drive the main conflict forward. So, a setting can be defined by its era and location, but it must also entice the five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. However, take care not to overwhelm the reader with details to the point that they obscure the reader’s interest in (and attention to) the plot.
• Provide a synopsis of your novel’s chapters. Write concisely in present tense and third-person perspective about the events in each chapter. The goal here is to leave yourself without any questions or mysteries. For example, in the hypothetical novel proposed in Step 1, the short synopsis for the first chapter can read “Janice discovers a startling phenomenon while analyzing cells underneath a microscope.” It can also be helpful to incorporate a short character sketch within the synopsis. Modifying the earlier sentence, it can now read “Janice (27—a doctoral student of microbiology at an Ivy League university) discovers …” By creating a synopsis for each chapter, you may spot harmful flaws in the story, thus allowing you to fix them before you invest several months of writing.

Nine-Step Structure

1. Choose your character. The focal point of nearly every story is a main character who travels from Point A to Point B, on a journey that can be either physical or emotional (or both). In this first step, you should start with just one character because you can add more characters in the outlining process. Let us use Janice from the six-step structure as our main character.
2. Give your main character a major problem. Once you have selected your main character, you will then need to choose the major problem or goal that character will face. Ideally, this problem should represent high stakes for the main character. But even if the stakes are lower, the major problem must matter to the main character. Janice’s major problem can be a lack of resources to find the cure for a rare disease.
3. Locate a catalyst that triggers the action. To help you find this catalyst, you can answer the following question: when in the novel’s events does your character first realize they have a major problem (or goal)? Next, determine the first action the character takes to help resolve their problem/goal. Of course, you should keep in mind that this first action WON’T resolve the problem or get them to their goal. However, this is a strong starting point. As mentioned during the six-step structure, the catalyst in this hypothetical novel can be Janice discovering a startling phenomenon while examining cells underneath a microscope.
4. Put obstacles in the character’s path. Once the character sets out on the path to reach their goal, they must encounter obstacles that block their way but urge them (and the plot) forward. Janice will likely face many obstacles in her path, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s say they are (in order): lack of cells to create a control group and more experimental groups, lack of funds to conduct more trials, lack of potential trial subjects, lack of interest from major journals (due to the disease’s rarity), lack of interest from interested journals because of Janices’ relative inexperience
5. Define the character’s largest ordeal. This is the moment in the story when the protagonist feels hopeless, and it is a vital moment in nearly every story. In our hypothetical story, perhaps Janice has run out of funding and all of the major medical journals have rejected her research article.
6. Decide upon a resolution. How will the protagonist escape from their ordeal? You might not answer this question until you write your draft, but you should still write down some possibilities. To get you started, write down a concise list of your characters wants versus needs. And like the old Rolling Stones song, the character might not end up getting what they want, but they will instead get what they need. So, you should think about what the protagonist needs to understand about themselves, as this might be the key to overcoming their ordeal. For Janice, it might be that she can reach out to key supporters who have alternate publishing avenues that she never considered.
7. Locate the character’s arc. The character arc describes the protagonist’s transformation between the story’s beginning and its end. It charts the character’s evolution resulting from experiences and obstacles throughout the story’s course. To begin, as an exercise, you can write in the protagonist’s voice: “I started out ___.” and “I ended up ___.” Then you can fill in the blanks with the character’s realizations. For Janice, it can initially be something like “I started out with only a hope.” And “I ended up being showered with praise.”
8. Connect the story’s end to its start. The parallels do not need to be exact, but they should serve as clear bookends that show how different the protagonist is in the novel’s last scene versus its first scene. The first and last scenes can take place in the same location, or they can center on an object important to the character. For Janice, she could start the novel alone in her lab, and she could end the novel in the lab but surrounded by friends, family, and other supporters.
9. Create the full outline. The outline’s format can take many forms—a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, or even sticky notes on a wall or whiteboard. The important thing is that it works for you. However, you should realize that this initial outline will not represent the story’s final form. You are still on the journey, but you will finish it eventually because you have provided your novel with a solid structure. If you decide upon the sticky-note route, here are ideas on what to include on each note:

1. The novel’s opening scene
2. The catalyst moment
3. The protagonist’s first action towards their goal
4. Obstacles 1-3, representing three separate scenes
5. The largest ordeal
6. The novel’s resolution
7. The novel’s closing scene

No matter which outlining structure you choose, our editors at Technica are available for feedback and are willing to help you shape your novel into its best form. Contact us today to learn more about the many developmental services we provide.

By Matt Wade
Matt is an Editorial Assistant at Technica Editorial