outlining: first drafting without actually drafting
how I outline (very intensively) as well as some tips for troubleshooting
Lately I’ve been plotting my YA horror idea (code-name Family Mart WIP) and having loads of fun with it. While outlining isn’t for everyone, I love the feeling of fleshing out a new story before the actual drafting inevitably crushes me.
In terms of practicality, outlining helps my first drafts turn out way more coherent than they’d be otherwise, since I’m an overwriter and can lead my characters down meandering paths. And, as mentioned in my post about writing while working full time, I prefer agonizing over an outline to scrapping an entire draft.
So I thought I’d share how I outline, as well as mention things I’ve learned to watch out for while troubleshooting my outline and share my outlining templates.
Disclaimer: This is what works for me, someone aiming to be traditionally published in commercial fiction, and isn’t applicable to everyone! Also, there’s no right way to draft and no rule that has to be followed.
part 1: brainstorming
Trying too quickly to lay out a plot tends to kill my creativity so, before moving on to outlining, here are some things I like to figure out first:
Atmosphere—where does the story happen? what vibe do I want?
Atmosphere is often the first thing that comes to me. It leads to knowing the genre and age range of the story and the general vibe I want—scary and twisty or Studio Ghibli-esque or backstabby and grungy.Characters—who are they?
what kind of traumatized are they?
I need a general sense of who my main character is, what they want, and what put them in a position to play this role (aka a rough sense of their backstory).Core hook—what element makes it stand out?
If the hook of the story is easy to market, that’s great, but what’s really important is what’s the hook for me. What makes me excited about this story? Is it the unique setting? The stakes? The banger ending? If I can’t find a core hook, the book idea usually dies quickly.Big twist—what revelation am I going to shock readers with?
I love reveals that turn the characters’ world upside down, and most of the time figuring out what reveal I want and the elements to support it happening cascades into knowing how everything else—world, plot, characters—should go. I pretty much never start plotting until the twist is nailed down.
part 2: figuring out your anchor points
My first NaNoWriMo was completely pantsed, and while I knew how I wanted the story to end, I didn’t know the middle, and ended up writing 50 thousand words of my characters moving in tensionless circles.
For my second book that I eventually signed my agent with, I only outlined two big reveals and the ending. I ended up rewriting all of it, salvaging only the reveal scenes and the general events of the ending.
That had me noticing: the big, tension-filled events, the ones I’d structured my world and character moments around, were the only things that survived.
They made my story. They anchored it. But everything that happened in between was rewritten. Part of the reason was the events I was aiming for were spaced too far away and I couldn’t see a good way to the next one—so I fumbled to it through a slog of events that weren’t compact or tense enough.
If I’d thought out more anchor points, connecting them would’ve been easier.
Instead of spending 20 scenes floundering towards the 50% mark reveal, I would’ve instead pondered a handful of scenes at a time. And because anchor points are naturally important and tension-packed, that leads to a story with tension points scattered throughout instead of looking like: interesting beginning—slog—50% mark reveal—slog—75% mark reveal—ending.
If outlining in too much detail kills the excitement, but pantsing it turns out drafts that need too much rewriting, outlining just enough to have these anchor points might be a good balance between the two approaches.
Here are some things I’ve learned to consider while mapping out my plot events:
Writing a query letter really does help
This is widely circulated advice by now, so I won’t go into too much detail. Basically, this helps see whether the hook is enticing and reworking every point the query falls short—whether it’s character motivation or plot events—is a good way to revise these key elements before diving into detailed plotting.Correlating external and internal plot
I personally can’t fall in love with a story unless the characters are engaging. So while mapping out anchor points, I consider: What impact does this have on the character emotionally? What internal demons are they battling and how can I correlate this to the external plot? What internal arc will they have?Following a beat sheet
Plotting can be extremely overwhelming. However, following a beat sheet (a list of crucial plot points) is an easy method of figuring out what plot points might be needed and when. I don’t think beat sheets have to be followed, but they help me start with a structure that has adequately-spaced tension points. (At the end of this post I’ve linked the beat sheet template I use, which has brief explanations of each beat within.)
part 3: filling in the spaces
After figuring out anchor points, what follows is (in my opinion) easier: filling in the space between each point, to create a sequence of events that gets you from A to B.
This can of course be done by diving into drafting, but I personally like to outline in more depth so I can double check it all makes sense. It’s overwhelming to outline every scene in a story, so I break it down into steps.
Step 1: Act by act outlines
Before getting too granular, I write down the broad strokes of each act, to get a rough sense of how to string everything together. I feel it’s important to consider the cause-and-effect chain, which I’ll delve into again later.Step 2: Writing a synopsis also helps
I’ve recently found that writing a synopsis allows me to figure out how to explain things and thus clarify them for myself. In addition, condensing to 500-800 words helps me to identify redundant plot sequences. For instance, if a bunch of scenes are abbreviated to “they take a road trip through towns,” that could mean nothing of import happens and the trip process could be skipped.Step 3: Scene by scene outlines
This is pretty self-explanatory, and I wrote a post on crafting scenes a while back. However, I don’t outline every scene before drafting, since detailed scene outlines for the later parts of the story might become irrelevant as I write. Instead, I outline each act scene by scene right before writing it. It’s only after I’ve finished act 1 that I outline act 2 in detail, and so on and so forth.
part 4: troubleshooting
Though I fully outlined Blood Red Poppies initially, I’m still going through revisions and making big changes. This is, of course, discouraging news to the outlining process. However, each revision teaches me new things to be aware of—things I’m applying to my outlining process in the hope of cutting down the number of drafts before a story becomes presentable.
Some things I already brought up in my scene crafting post, such as finding ways to combine big reveals and emotional turning points into a tight sequence for ~drama~, but here are some other issues I’ve learned to troubleshoot in my plot:
Stakes & motivations need to be clear and present
I often fall into the trap of overcomplicating the story and end up having motivations and stakes that are obtuse or change too frequently. If it’s impossible to parse what exactly is at risk, it’s also difficult for the reader to care. Working on a query helps with this, as distilling the story’s conflict into a single sentence helps keep it in mind and thus more present in the story.Create a ticking clock/deadline within the story
This advice veers commercial and hard deadlines can feel corny…but story tension can fall flat if there’s no time limit for what the characters need to accomplish. If consequences won’t arrive in the near future or might never arrive, it can decrease the amount of worry (and thus empathy) the reader has.Having a physical antagonist creates more direct, visible tension
One thing I struggled with in the first attempts at drafting Poppies was how the main character was only fighting against her curse, which was too intangible. Adding a lesser, visibly present antagonistic force provided tension and clear, immediate stakes. It also helped flesh out the world, since delving into this antagonist allowed the main character to interact with more of her surroundings.Having a cause and effect chain propels the story forward
When a story has a cause and effect chain (eg: Event A causes the MC to make a decision that leads to Event B) it creates (imo) better forward momentum. Readers will see that everything has consequences and the MC is reacting adequately to events, and want to see things play out. It also lets the MC drive the story and ensures each scene is imperative. Not every scene needs to adhere to the cause and effect chain, but if entire sections are composed of events that could be easily swapped out or moved around, it might feel like the story lacks direction.Adequate buildup to turning points
One thing I fumbled in the first drafts of Poppies was having important moments happen too easily, eg: the MC reaches the right conclusions about things without enough clues to base her deductions on. If characters don’t do enough work to deserve the payoff, the payoff feels less momentous (and sometimes illogical). So I try to make sure enough clues have been provided or that a relationship/internal arc has had enough progression before a Big Moment.Check for repetitions
Aside from double-checking scene openings and endings, I also check whether multiple pieces of information are delivered in similar ways or if tension arises from similar means (eg: an antagonist popping out as a scene cliffhanger). Sometimes this is just to make sure the story isn’t repetitive; other times repeating elements indicate a deeper flaw (eg: the MC’s being jerked around by the antagonist too much instead of driving the narrative themself).
part 5: templates
Here are the templates I use to aid in my outlining process. They’re completely free and you’re welcome to duplicate them—though if you do, I’d love a shoutout!
Notion drafting template: Click the “…” at the top right and choose “duplicate.” It includes a section for basic info, deadline countdowns and goals, another for world-building, plot, character, and brainstorming, as well as a kankan board at the bottom to track the progress of various tasks.
Google beat sheet template: Click “file” and choose “make a copy.” This includes the plot beats for a 4-act structure I try to adhere to as well as explanations as to what those beats are and blank rows to fill in the gaps between beats. It has columns for the main plot and character arcs (and whatever other subplots that need to be tracked), to make it easier to fold in emotional turning points along with external plot points.
Google scene list template: Click “file” and choose “make a copy.” This template has space for act summaries, scene summaries, and detailed scene rundowns, as well as columns to track subplots with. I personally hide all the white rows first (the scene rundowns) to work out the scene flow via scene summaries, then move right to jot down what occurs in each subplot within that scene before creating a scene rundown that compiles the main plot and subplots.
And that’s my outlining process! Hopefully it was helpful.
Outlining is a lot of work and unfortunately I don’t think all the outlining in the world can lead to a perfect first draft. But I hope my process will improve book by book and it’ll take less drafts to reach a state where the story is ready for submission.