Outlining: How to Keep Your Story on Topic

So, you think you are a writer. You have spent hours honing your craft, and you have hit upon that perfect idea that you are certain that everyone will love. You have dreams of becoming an instant star! So with pen in hand (or fingers on a computer!), you sit down and begin to mold your idea into a coherent story. But you may have forgotten something . . . .

It is commonly said that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” And this axiom applies to writing as well—and more specifically to outlining. I liken it to playing the piano—I dabble a little, and I fancy that I play pretty well for a fellow who has no formal training whatsoever. But even though I could have taken the time to learn how to play properly even by myself, I never had the patience to do so. Playing scales and stuff like that is boring—I always wanted to get to playing the music! As a result, though I can play to a certain extent, the more difficult pieces, which require a certain dexterity of the fingers, are beyond my ability.

Writing is much the same, though in a different sense. Years of typing have brought me to the point where I can type fairly quickly, so that is not the problem. But if I do not prepare my story by charting out exactly where I want to go with it, I am not giving it a chance to be as good as it could be.

Let me share another example. When I first started writing, I started because I had a good idea for a fantasy fiction which I shared with my sister. We both had an interest in writing, so we decided that we’d take a shot at it and see if we couldn’t come up with something. So we planned out a little of the world (we’ll get into this a little later), the characters, and the situation which would require resolving, and then we dove into writing. The result, while amusing for us, was a long rambling manuscript of well over 600 pages (somewhere in the 350 – 400K word range, as I recall) which bogged down when we didn’t know where we were going. Another sister of mine read it and proclaimed it to be the most boring thing she had ever read.

I learned a couple of valuable lessons from this experience. The first is that a story can go in all kinds of tangents if it is not tightly controlled, and while those tangents might be amusing for me as a writer, others do not have my attachment to the characters and situations. Writing this way introduces a whole lot of material which is not necessary to relate the story. A good story needs to be well-planned, and it needs to move the plot along at a good pace. You cannot do that if you do not know where you are going. And even if you know what the ending will be, if you do not know how to get there, you are setting yourself up for failure. The other thing I learned from the experience is that it is very difficult to recover a story when it gets bloated with a lot of extraneous material. I’m still trying to recover that initial story, but the problem is that I know what we have written so well that it is difficult to know what to purge and what to keep. Beyond that, it grew to such proportions so quickly that it is too slow by half, and I think most readers would give up before they ever get to the good parts. It is something I am still struggling with.

Now, before we get into the main part of this article, I just wanted to put in a bit of a plug here which will only be applicable in certain genres. If you are writing about the modern world—or even, to a certain extent, the historical world—then you pretty much have the world already created for you. However, if you are writing in a setting which is not “our” world and deals with subjects we would find fantastical, then you need to know how everything works. Lelia and I call this step “world building,” and it is not only setting up the history, cultures, customs, etc., of your new world, but also creating the rules for how everything works.

In Fantasy Fiction for instance, magic does not necessarily need to be explained in any great detail, but you as the writer need to know in a general sense how magic works. One of the best descriptions I have ever seen in fantasy was David Eddings’ “the will and the word” from the Belgariad. Essentially, if you have the will and you speak the word (it does not really matter what the word is), then what you intend will happen. However, there are certain rules which cannot be broken—for example, it is impossible to “unmake” something, and if it is attempted, the power exerted will rebound and destroy the person using the power. It is a simple description, yet so it was so profoundly useful in the story and sufficed brilliantly for the mechanics of what Eddings needed to accomplish in his saga.

Other genres have different requirements. Science Fiction, for example tends to be rather rigidly controlled, and the science used has to be at least plausible. It does not really matter what genre you are writing, but the knowledge of the rules of your universe is critical so that you do not end up contradicting yourself.

Once you have completed your world building, the next step is to take your idea and the information about the world you have created and to use all this to build an outline. The outline will tell you in a general sense everything that needs to happen for you to get from the initial chapter of your story to the end result. It can be as detailed or as brief as you want it to be, though it should at the very least contain all the major events which will make up your story. Robert Jordan, author of The Wheel of Time saga, once said that he had a document which laid out all the important events which needed to happen for him to complete the series. Now, I can only conjecture, never having seen this document, but my guess is that it was in point format, and it was likely not very long. Whether this lack of detail (if it was lacking in detail) led to fourteen books, again, I can only conjecture. However, I have found that my writing tends to bloat somewhat the less information I have in the outline.

So how exactly should a writer structure his outline? Well, really that is really up to each individual. I will mention two different styles that I have used in the past with some success, but each writer should really through their own experimentation find a method which works best for them.

The first example is a point format which contains quite a bit of detail. Here is an example from a work which Lelia and I are currently writing:

Chapter 8: (Elizabeth POV) The next day, Elizabeth rambles through the country. Wednesday, October 16

Elizabeth thinks of the assembly and how Bingley singled her out.
She reflects that it is extremely rare for a man to pay attention to her and ignore Jane.
Elizabeth’s reflection about Bingley (some time gone by) and the party at Lucas Lodge.
Elizabeth has spent some time with Bingley, and the first feelings of gratitude have worn off.
She decides she is probably not a good match for Bingley (who, after all, is not an avid reader as she is) and resolves to put Jane forward.
Thursday, October 24 At the party at Lucas Lodge, Caroline and Elizabeth talk briefly. Caroline is being barely civil and mentions that her brother is very fond of Georgiana. Elizabeth doesn’t trust what she says, but she does wonder.

During the party, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Jane have a talk, and Jane, knowing her sister, tells her to try to find out whether she likes him rather than just dismiss him out of hand.
Charlotte, however, says Elizabeth should secure Bingley.
Elizabeth realizes Jane is right that she should give Bingley a chance and agrees to try.
When Elizabeth speaks to Bingley with her mother nearby, Mrs. Bennet says nothing but scowls and glances at Jane. Elizabeth realizes her mother has been told to back off and not continue to promote Jane to Bingley.

In this example, as you can see, the major points of the chapter are all covered, and while it does leave a bit of room for creative license in the writing, the plot has been decided upon, and there is not a lot of maneuvering room available. Of course, if an idea strikes me while I am writing, I will often follow it. But I find that such inspiration strikes me less when I am writing with this style of outlining.

Here is the second style I have used, which is done in more of a paragraph form:

Chapter 6 (Skye is captured by GB)

Having been cast off by his father, Skye wakes up to find himself on the ground in a grove of trees. He is horrified, never having walked on solid ground before. He has a splitting headache and can barely concentrate. Skye is disoriented when he wakes up and does not immediately try to go up to one of the smaller SC cities. Thus, by the time he gathers his senses, the GB soldiers are already there. Skye fights them and then tries to run, but he is captured by their “dirt cages” before he can use his power to fly up to the clouds.

Here, we just put a few sentences into a paragraph to give us a sense of where the chapter is headed. It’s quite a bit more vague and requires the writer to come up with a lot more of the material on the fly rather than regimenting it out in advance. I tend to embellish quite a bit more when I am using this type of outline.

From my perspective, I tend to prefer the second style better. The reason is that I tend to be able to produce a paragraph outline much easier than I can a point outline, likely because there is a lot less information to decide upon in a paragraph outline. I think much better on the fly, and story points come to me while writing, so a less specific outline tends to work better for me. Lelia, I suspect, would have a different opinion, as she tends to prefer to know exactly what she is writing before she begins. Neither is right or wrong, and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Either way, outlining is a lot of work, but I find that the point style is much more work and much more time consuming. Of course, it’s likely another facet of my personality. If you recall, I said earlier that I like to get right down to it. The more detail an outline contains, the more time consuming it is . . . and the longer it will take before you are able to actually get to the writing.

In our joint writing, Lelia and I have used both styles. We started using point format, but as we became more familiar and confident with one another’s writing, we gradually migrated to paragraph style, though we still tend to use point form when the story we’re outlining is complicated or long. Again, there is no right or wrong. Just remember that when you outline, you should have all the major points included regardless of the level of detail you use. That does not mean that you should ignore inspiration, but it does keep you on topic. Just do not try to dive directly into the writing without taking the time to plan in advance. Trust me—regardless of the amount of work it requires to create an outline, you will not regret it.

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For anyone who is wondering, the two examples I used were from upcoming works. The first is obviously a Pride and Prejudice variation which we are currently writing. The second is a fantasy fiction trilogy. The rough draft of the first book is complete, while the other two books are in the outlining/world building stage and should be written over the course of the next several months. Hopefully, we’ll be editing and searching for a publisher by the end of the summer.

I also wanted to announce that we have created a Facebook page for our publishing imprint, One Good Sonnet Publishing. For anyone who is interest, come and check us out at https://www.facebook.com/OneGoodSonnetPublishing. We try to post twice a week, generally sharing little anecdotes about writing or articles which are useful for the budding author.