Thursday, 2 August 2012

Outlining Your Novel


The outline is the story plan. Outlining is the process of setting out the events that will lead to the protagonist meeting his/her goal. Some writers advice that you fly by the seat of your pants and pray to God that everything falls into place. Some genres like mystery cannot work with this kind of style because they require structuring to avoid forgetting. The more planning you do in the beginning, the less rewriting you’ll have to do.

Once you have your character charts, you will be able to figure out exactly what your character would do is presented with a challenge. Outlining your book before you begin writing allows you to escape the writers block because the moment you begin writing you already have the building blocks. With an outline you will be able to;

a)      Know what happens next and if it makes sense so that you’ll have no dead ends.
b)      It is a foundation for your first draft and makes it less intimidating to start writing. 
c)      Figure out any plot holes or character actions

You don’t need to develop a magnificent outline. Just a basic list will do. Over-outlining may suck all the joy of writing and curb spontaneity. Furthermore it becomes harder to cut scenes because you have put so much effort into them. Some people simply outline by using a word document with an active table of contents so that they click and they see what could happen in the scene. Otherwise choose to use flashcards that allow them to organize and reorganize the scenes while providing a physical connection.

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