How to Outline Your Novel - part 2

hello everybody a couple of weeks ago i answered your 10 most popular questions about outlining and now i'm going to make an outline let's do the thing i'm going to walk you through my personal outlining process many of you probably know that i've done this in the past but the years have gone by and my process has evolved a few things to keep in mind my personal outlines are very detailed that's just how i like them if your process doesn't look like mine that's fine so long as it's working for you who cares if you like my method feel free to try it out and if you don't i don't give a let's get to it before you start outlining there are two things you'll want to nail down what is the overall plot of your story and who the are your characters typically you figure all of this out during what i refer to as the thought dumping phase thought dumping is the first part of the writing process it is more commonly referred to as brainstorming but i think thought dumping creates a more accurate visual your mind is basically pooping out ideas and some of those ideas are gonna be there really is no right or wrong way to thought dump you're literally just writing out every single idea that comes to mind regarding your story it could be lines of dialogue characters scenes plot points settings descriptions whatever the whole point is to come up with as much content as possible for you to build off of now i usually thought dump in a word doc on my laptop but i also keep a thought dump note on my phone just in case i think of anything when i'm out of the house once you think you have a sufficient amount of content to work with you move on to the outlining phase now my outlining phase consists of two parts if your thought dump was very organized then you might be able to skip the first part but if your thought dump looks like an absolute you're going to want to follow along the first part of my outlining process is what i like to call the puzzle phase many who are familiar with my process call it the note card phase that's fine too i go through my entire thought dump and i look for key events and plot points like the inciting incident the first kiss fight scenes character deaths the climax anything that drives the plot or subplots forward i find it and i write a brief description about it on note cards or post-its i personally prefer post-its i also like to color code my plot points red for violence pink for romance so romantic purple for friendship that let's make some plot points all right we need some violence up in this stick slap let's introduce the love interest we can name him shaft danger zone that's a regular nice guy name once you have all your cards made you move to a wide open space like the floor or a wall don't use a bed because someone will inevitably sit on it and it up clifford but fortunately cliff got me that handy-dandy poster board that you see over there and that's what i use for the puzzle phase the goal is to arrange all of your plot points in the order that you want them to appear in your story this is why i call it the puzzle phase it's like you got all these little puzzle pieces and you're trying to fit them together now that we've got a surface we're going to take all our post-it notes and get to organizing bam bam bam bam bam every story should start with a tearful breakup cause that's just good storytelling and you know why they broke up because our best friend kissed her man that now the aliens have showed up this is when shaft danger zone officially makes his appearance staffed we need you he severs the peepee of an alien why because that's the source of all their power the aliens bring in reinforcements with the walrus clan it's my story don't judge me shack danger zone and our main character have a cuddle fest because well when the walruses arrive what else can you do which is when the horny fairies show up because that seems to be the trend right now in fiction gotta have a horny fairy in your book clearly this leads to a circle jerk because morning fairies are horny and we finish the book off with a dick slap now while you're doing this you're gonna realize a few things one this is hard writing a book is hard get used to it two you're gonna have big chunks of nothing in your story don't freak out when this happens this is normal that's why we're doing this in the first place we want to find those empty moments and figure out a way to fill them so that's the next step in the puzzle phase after you've organized everything you're gonna look for plot holes and try and fill them this alone could take a few days because you gotta sit and think we got it once you've filled a majority of your plot holes you should have a pretty solid timeline for your story and you should be able to start dividing your plot points into chapters chapter one bam chapter two chapter three four and five beautiful you can also choose to divide your plot points into days or weeks within your story it's your outline do whatever the hell works for you and once you're done it might look a little something like this i'm trying to hold it far away because they're spoilers don't read it don't read it can you read it don't read it they're spoilers can you read it don't read it now that the puzzle phase is complete we move on to part two the actual outline you thought that was the outline didn't you you were wrong we're taking everything we just mapped out on our poster board and transferring it to a word document if you don't want to use word you can use google docs you can use scrivener whatever floats your boat but i would recommend at least typing it i basically regurgitate the poster board outline into a word document using bullet points and color coordination once all of the plot points are transferred over i go back to my thought dump i take all of the remaining details and i transfer them into their appropriate places in the outline remember the puzzle phase only took into consideration your main plot points there should be a lot more details in your thought dump that haven't yet been accounted for if you've got streams of dialogue in your thought dump go through your outline and figure out where those conversations need to take place if you've got violent maneuvers planned go through your outline and slap them in the appropriate fight scenes do this until everything in your thought dump has found its special little home except for the crap you decide not to use because it's crap once you've done this your outline should look pretty beefy you might be thinking hey i'm done but you're wrong again go through your outline and locate anything that might be a problem for you later in the writing process vague explanations time gaps plot holes inconsistencies figure out how to add depth to the shallow places the goal is to try and make the actual writing process as seamless as possible if you've got a scene here or there that isn't completely fleshed out yet it's not a big deal not every moment or every scene needs to be spelled out in full but most of it should be pretty clear once you've filled your outline with enough writerly goodness go through it one more time or ten more times and look for moments that can get the axe does one of your characters only show up in two scenes delete em found a moment that does absolutely nothing for your plot get it out of here cutting the fat from your outline saves you the trouble of making massive cuts to your novel once you finish with this step you're done finally you've got an outline provided you're comfortable with it and you're happy with the content you can start writing your book now don't think that because you've started your book you can't contribute to your outline writer brains are all over the place we tend to come up with ideas pretty much all the time when this happens pull out your outline and shove the idea into the appropriate place everything is modifiable it's your outline it's your rules now there is no standard length for an outline but as i've mentioned before mine tend to be pretty detailed so for my outlines we're looking at 30 pages at a minimum but that's just me if a 10-page outline works for you have at it so there you have it that is my outlining method from start to finish you can use it if you think it'll work for you you can modify it to suit your needs or you can ignore everything i've just said and do something completely different i really don't care there are lots of different outlining methods out there so feel free to experiment with that said don't forget to subscribe to my channel i post new videos on wednesdays eve the awakening is still available in ebook and paperback on amazon right now you can also order a signed copy all the links are listed below don't forget to check out my patreon page also listed below and if you have any questions or if there's something you'd like me to talk about in my next video be sure to tweet me at jenna maresi bye

Channel: Writing with Jenna Moreci

Views: 139,727

Rating: 4.9761267 out of 5

Keywords: write, writer, writing, read, reader, reading, book, books, ebook, publish, author, novel, literature, words, publishing, self publishing, outline, outlining, funny, humor, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, laugh, motivation, inspiration

Id: Hwv2SKayUPo

Length: 8min 35sec (515 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 08 2017