First off, I hope I'm putting this is in the right section, apologies if not.

Ok, so, I've kind of hit a wall in some of my books, and I've decided to give outlining a try. That way I can see all of my thoughts and know what's going to happen, and hopefully not have as much writer's block. It seems to help with my school papers, so hopefully it'll help my books, too although it's highly possible I'm just using this as a procrastination method to avoid the actual writing. Do y'all outline, and if so, what does your outline include? The one I've set up at this point is based off JK Rowling's, in that I have the chapter title, description of what happens, and then how the chapter moves forward or sets up the plot and any sub-plots. Just curious what kind of other outlines people do, as I'm not fully committed to mine yet haha.

(Also, it feels so good to post on here again! It's been awhile)

[Perhaps Village Lore since it mentions writing techniques? But someone knowledgable can move it if it's out of place, I'm sure! ]

I have a very nebulous style of outlining/writing so far... I did mine in sort of a K. M. Weiland style, just sort of writing or typing out points as I think of them in an almost conversational style, like so:

So, I know the inventor will be traveling back in time with his sister. I also know she doesn't want to travel back in time because it is too dangerous. How does he get her mind to change over the first song?

They transport to England. (Why England? *pauses and thinks* Because the costumes are amazing!!! *pauses and thinks* Although I need a better reason...)

Then, as I go back over my draft, which in this case had some scenes scripted and some outlined (or with questions in the sidelines) I pay attention to the unanswered questions, because they signify plot holes. If I outlined out of order (which I do sometimes), I try to fix that. Sometimes outlining and actual writing get mixed up for me, and I'll take a scene through outline mode after writing a draft. Again, that helps me find plot holes. I hope this helps! The biggest thing a conversational style of editing helped with was not having to feel the outline was perfect. Often I can't outline before I have a messy first draft, so my outlines are more like analyses of what I've written, to help me move forward.

Since you've hit a wall, outlining what you have so far and analyzing where you are stuck just may be the way to go! As K. M. Weiland says, a lot of writer's block is actually plot block. If you can pull the right string to untangle the plot, you should be back in business!

The only piece of fiction I've ever finished that I'm at all pleased with was written without an outline. And I am painfully aware that outlining, like other forms of preparation (such as worldbuilding and "character development"), can easily become a way of avoiding writing (and one I should perhaps mention in my thread on the subject ...), as AnnewithanE noted. But both my training (and in-class experience) in technical writing, my experiences with my current fiction project, and my experience outside the field entirely have thoroughly convinced me that it's (as a general rule) much better to make a brief plan, improve that plan as much as possible (given whatever constraints apply), and then write from the plan, than to write without a plan and either find a problem it will take a lot of effort to fix or not find a problem because it's only obvious when looking at an outline.

In the past, I've used a process I call "iterative outlining," starting the outline at the most general level, then going through it to increase the level of detail one step ("book" to "arc" to "sequence" to "scene," and planning to go to "action" next before I abandoned the process). For me this was a trap, because I was applying it at the scale of the whole series, which meant I had a dozen stories at the "sequence" or "scene list" level that I remembered very little about except when I reread my outline. But for one project at a time, when you can keep the core concept (whether you distill it to a logline or not) in the forefront of your mind, I think this process could work well.

For my current project, I went through "the snowflake method," which is kind of similar but also adds character development alongside plot development. It's worked well for me so far.

The format (or the tool) you use for outlining doesn't matter much. I prefer the old-fashioned hierarchical outline because (like bullet points) it makes it easy to scan and (unlike bullet points) it shows how everything fits together into the larger structure (and hierarchical structures fit very well with how my mind works.) But this is one of many things about which Kipling's statement that "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays / And every single one of them is right!" is (almost) true. If your system works for you, then that's (probably) good enough(you may think of some ways to improve it for the next project ).


K. M. Weiland's books for writers are on my list of books I'd like to read sometime(and I now finally have the budget to start chipping away at that list, if not the time for thoughtful reading or any space to keep books ... ), but I haven't read any of them. The "conversational" style isn't one I would find helpful for my "reference" documents (though I've used something similar when writing "plot summaries" for public consumption), but if it works for you I won't gainsay you


As the last step before starting the "first" draft of my current project, I printed out all my outlines and "snowflake process" planning documents and went over them to fix any inconsistencies. The advantage of planning at this level is that I can do that: it was only about a dozen pages, not the fifty or more that a complete draft would have been, so I could look at any given scene or character profile in its entirety in every version at once.


A post on the Writing Stack Exchange site I saw recently made the point that

So you're in good company But I agree that a writer shouldn't feel like an outline is set in stone(unless she's been hired to write for someone else to the outline they supply ...); one of the purposes of an outline is to make it easy to make changes. (I just recommend that when you diverge from your outline, you change the outline to match the text (once you reach a stopping-place, of course); an inaccurate outline is worse than useless.)