How to write a story outline

When writing or planning to write a book, you must and I mean, must create a book outline because it’s critical for you as the writer to stay on course and to help your readers stay in line with the story and not get muddles by a story that flops back and forth or all over the place. The reason I say this is because the outline is the very foundation of your writing process, kind of like your roadmap of thoughts to stay on track. 

An Outline is great to stay on track of your story, but as a writer I can tell you it also prevents that dreaded writer’s block when you sit at your desk staring at a blank page not knowing what to write next. The outline will help you prevent such writer’s block. Because no matter how experienced you are as a writer, writing a book is challenging and daunting if you don’t have your roadmap to keep you on the road to writing that novel.

How daunting is you’re asking, well try thinking about it like this: try stringing together a fluid sequence of words that not only make sense but that also tell the story without interruption and that has compelling characters and plots to the story worth reading. Because if you don’t know your characters, or the plot to which your story is telling, it can become extremely confusing not only for your readers, but also you as the writer.

So how to write an outline for a book. First you need to decide if you are writing a fiction which is a made-up story that comes from your mind that includes aspects such as structure, plot, scenes and characters. Or are you writing a nonfiction book, which is like a biography or information that comes from actual history about a person, place or thing filled with clusters of actual topics, concepts and information architecture that can be researched for accuracy. 

If you do not use an outline, I can tell you from experience, your book will take forever to write, because unless you’ve got a photogenic memory, you will forget the storyline, plots, structure and the character base before you get to the middle of the book. That’s unless you reread what you’ve written every day which wastes time and energy.   Your outline is your writing plan of action. I use it as my chapter design for the storyline and to tell me who is supposed to be in every chapter and what they’re doing. What I am revealing within that chapter and how it will affect the actual story.

Your outline is also where your ideas are stored until you use them in your book. Great place to store the link to research material so you don’t lose them.  It also helps the writer to write more quickly because the ideas and concept that you first had in your mind’s eye will flood your memory once again and help you write more quickly without trying to figure out what you wanted in a certain chapter or to happen to a character as the story unfolds. The outline is also a surprising first draft of your book that can easily fleshed out from 10- or 20-page outline to 100 pages typed in no time.

So, get to writing that outline by writing one-line ideas for each chapter, then do a brain dump of other ideas that you might use to flesh out a chapter, like research history of the civil war in the year 1862 in northern Virginia area. Then throw in the who will be in the chapter, what will they be doing, when will it take place and why are they there and how does their involvement in that chapter enhance or help the story to evolve.  When you work through the outline it helps you to understand your own story, plot and characters because you asked the right questions for each chapter. By having this information readily available at your fingertips, your story will develop quickly and by magic it will write itself before your eyes.

Here are a few tips to help you decide what type of outline you should use for fiction or nonfiction type books.

For nonfiction style books, you need to decide a few things. Is your book going to be compared and contrast or problem solve, or what purpose you plan to serve within the writing of your book? You must identify your purpose then plan out the structure of your book. Always remember the purpose of your book concept idea then create your outline structure. Main points you plan to bring up in your structure, how will you answer those points, are they questions or compare and contrast the problem at hand. Go read other books that are nonfiction and figure out how they laid out their story. Then design each chapter accordingly based on your issues at hand.

For Fiction style books, you have a different style to contend with because you have a beginning, middle and end story. Once you have that beginning and ending down on paper, you need to add in your characters to the story. Who will be your antagonist, your protagonist and your hero, once you know that, add them to your story, but be sure to have a character bio written for each character in the story? Then add in your scenes to help enhance the story by giving detailed scene scenarios. Then break down your story by chapter with the above information and drill down your story to the basics of each chapter then start writing it completely. Good luck can’t wait to read you’ve been published. 😊

Author Elizabeth Kilbride is a former political operative, author, scriptwriter, historian, journalist. business professional, and creative artist, and life coach consultant. Ms. Kilbride holds a Masters in Criminology and a BS in Business Management who stepped out of the loop for a while, but who is now back with a powerful opinion and voice in the direction of this country and our economy. As a life coach, she is available to counsel individuals to enjoy their dreams and a better life. Ms. Kilbride loves to travel, photograph her surroundings and is also a gourmet cook who loves to garden and preserve food for the winter months.