The importance of outlining

So far, I have published only the first two books of what I expect to make into a seven book series. But, although there is only a difference of 104 pages between them, the time it took me to write them is years appart from each other.

Book one, The Essential Ties, is 546 pages long, and it took me only two years to write. But, book two, The Fury, is 650 pages long and took me three years and ten months to finish writing. That's almost double the time of the first book, and just for little over 100 pages. Why is there such a significant disparity here?

The answer: outlining. It took me just a short week to outline the plot of The Essential Ties, but, for The Fury, due to the excitement of having a published work for the first time ever, I failed to prepare an outline to organize my ideas in a timeline.

An outline of your story helps you to set up surprising events, leaving hints throughout the plot to lead the readers away and then shock them with a huge plot twist. Also, an outline helps you to keep track of your characters' dates and ages, and of the chronological order of events.

After spending such a long time working on my second book, I have learned my lesson; I am now outlining my third book, The Dragon Spirit; I call this, plotting.