Why should we make an outline

To outline or not? Many writers feel passionately one way or the other. Some say an outline will kill all the organic juices and take the fun and discovery out of the first draft. Others say they need the characters to guide them, to show them where the story will go. I think an underlying aversion to creating an outline is it clashes with the fabric of life. So often we try to plan our futures, but rarely can see beyond a step or two of the path ahead. We might have an idea we’re working towards, but life takes its own unforeseen twists, so when we look back the road looks nothing like we’d anticipated when we set out.

Why to Outline

With most journeys, we start out with an idea of the destination. Writing projects also start with a spark—a character, a scene, a what-if moment. But what happens from there? This is where pantsers (people who write without planning) will argue for letting scenes unfold, enjoying the magic as it flows from the keyboard. This process is important. But outlining could make it even better.

In John Irving’s novel A Widow for One Year, he said he wrote the entire story to work to the last line. If you’ve read anything by John Irving, you know his stories tend to be long, with multiple tangents woven in. I imagine he enjoyed following the various directions the plot took, and jumped down many a rabbit hole with his characters. But to write an almost six-hundred-page novel to work towards one line, he would have to have some rough idea of how to get there.

Pantsers, you are my people. I, too, once loved to get to know my characters, throw them into an opening situation, and see where they take it without much thought other than a vague notion of how it will all play out. Sadly this led to many failure to launch projects that never made it past 20 pages. Now, one of the most frequent comments I have for my editorial clients is for them to go through the manuscript scene by scene and create an outline. Here’s why:

1. An outline gives you a reference to keep your timeline straight.

Do you have chapters where the character wakes up, has breakfast, and then six paragraphs later is noticing that darkness is falling? What happened to the rest of the day? Or do you have a story that takes place over the course of a month, but then your characters are talking about weeks that have passed? It’s easy to get tripped up as you’re writing over the course of months as to when exactly things are happening. Maybe you mentioned something was on Tuesday three chapters ago, but then the next week when you write another scene you say it’s the next day, and it’s Friday. Sometimes a basic timeline can act as an outline. When I start a new project, I draw a calendar of the timeline so I know when key events happened, what day of the week the major holidays would be, and how many days would have to pass between events for them to make sense.

2. Using an outline can be a gentle reminder of where you want the story to go.

This means plot. And yes, I’m a former pantser. The idea of overly plotting once gave me the heebie-jeebies. And now I’ve seen the light. I need an idea of what I’m working towards, or else my characters wind up in Jimmy Buffet’s endless summer land, rolling through their days without much direction, and with overemphasis on events that turn out to mean almost nothing. A very basic outline—this is where the story opens, and why, here are a bunch of things that might happen in the middle, and then it all builds to this boiling point near the end, followed by loose ends getting tied up— keeps me on track. It also helps maintain tension from scene to scene.

Many first drafts often read like “this happened, this happened, and then this happened,” but there’s no tension to make it into a story. With an outline in place, instead of spending time wondering what should happen next, you can put the effort into making sure what happens matters to the overall story, the events are important, and each scene is building toward the next. The plot is what happens. The tension is why things happen. And an outline will make sure you’re including both.

3. Outlines can remind you to build your character arc.

Your plot consists of your character getting into situations, handling them, and moving on to the next scene. But she can’t handle everything the same way, time after time, or the reader gets bored. And the character never grows. When writing without an outline, it’s easy to keep the character flat until the end, when she has an epiphany and decides to change. But if you use an outline, you can map in subtle differences to show how the character learns as she goes, and build to that epiphany at the end. You can note how the character reacts, who is involved, what impact the scene has on her.

4. As you outline your story, you can track how your character is feeling, and the emotional goals of each scene.

As much as readers are drawn into your plot, and are turning pages to find out what happens next, they also want to be engaged by how your character is feeling. What emotion is conveyed by each scene? You know at the opening you need to create a character that readers want to root for, but then what happens? How does the reader stay engaged, and keep caring? Part of the answer is in what the character does, but if you’re in touch with the character’s emotions, the reader will feel that, too, and the story will become more meaningful.

5. And perhaps most importantly, having an outline will help you save time.

Time. That precious commodity we wish we had more of. Having enough time is what keeps most writers from getting their words down. It keeps writing projects from ever getting finished. And when we get stuck, when we’re not sure what should happen next, how a character should react, what we really want to say, it is so much easier to do anything else other than sit and write. When we’re stuck the dog gets walked, the refrigerator gets cleaned out, social media is rediscovered. If you’re stuck and you have an outline, though, you’re more likely to power through it because you know where you need to get next. Your internal GPS might be down and you’ll take a few wrong turns, but eventually you’ll arrive where you need to be. And when you finish that first draft, you’ll have much less to cut. The stronger your outline, the better that first draft will be, saving you hours if not days over the course of your project.

Just like writing down your goals makes them more likely to be achieved, outlining your story will make it easier to finish. Having a working outline will help in revisions, because as things change in the story, the outline can be referenced to ensure the changes are consistent. And, pantsers, believe me when I tell you that creating an outline first can also give you peace of mind. When you hit that panic attack in the murky middle, reach for your outline. Note what your characters need to achieve, what obstacles need to be overcome, and keep writing. You can do it!

Get even more in depth at Story Mastermind. Develop your full outline at our six-week Novel Outline intensive or emerge from our six-month Novel writing intensive with a full draft. Here’s a sneak peek at the outline document you’ll receive as a participant:

Why is it important to make an outline?

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