How to Craft a Novel Outline
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
Whether you’re writing your first novel, or your twentieth, here’s a case for creating a robust novel outline. Don’t worry—if you’ve actively avoided using a novel outline in the past, it’s never too late to try it. And I promise that it doesn’t hurt as much as you might think. Writing a novel is no small feat, and it can be easy to get overwhelmed with all of the moving pieces. But, having a well-crafted outline can help you stay organized as you write your story and ease the project from idea to completion. Here are some tips for creating the perfect novel outline.
Creating a Novel Outline: Refine Your Premise
Before you dive into your novel outline, take some time to think about the components of your story. What kind of protagonist are you writing about? What kind of audience or category are you targeting? Which genre does your story fit into and what are some tropes and expectations of that genre, if applicable? Do you have any other setting or worldbuilding details in mind that affect the story?
Once you have these details planned out, focus on your pitch. This is sometimes called your premise statement or logline. Why formulate a pitch first? It’s a good exercise to see if you have enough “there” there in your concept. Briefly answer the question of, “What is the story about?” Can you include character and plot and world/genre in a way that makes it sound compelling? If not, you have a story issue, not a pitch issue.
Answering these questions will give you an idea of what pieces you need to include in your novel outline, and how they should fit together.
From here, you will need to anchor your story with six main points. If you don’t have these yet, I strongly suggest thinking them up as you proceed with your novel outline:
Escalating Obstacles
The Midpoint
All Is Lost/Dark Night of the Soul/Climax
Synthesis/Wielding
Ending
Some of these beats might be familiar to you from other novel outline frameworks like Save the Cat Writes a Novel. Others might be new takes or phrasings on familiar elements. For a full explanation of these beats and the bigger picture of how to create a novel outline, check out the Story Mastermind Novel Outline Framework.
Creating a Novel Outline: Proceed to Chapter Summaries
Once you have a better understanding of your idea’s broad strokes and logistical elements like the audience and genre, as well as the crucial anchor points (or tentpoles) outlined above, you can start drafting your novel outline into a chapter by chapter outline.
Begin by summarizing each chapter on paper or in a document. This doesn’t need to be extensive just yet—write enough to track your plot and character arcs from chapter to chapter. A simple bullet point list should suffice. You are basically trying to fill in the spaces between the tentpole elements.
Now you want to think about another layer, with secondary characters and perhaps a subplot. Keep your novel theme in mind. All of the pieces that you work into your story should somehow fit your character’s evolution, or your plot, or your bigger picture idea, without overtly explaining just what your story is “about” on the page.
If you run out of juice in your novel outline at this point, you can introduce some new characters or ramp up your character’s internal conflict or external conflict or both. Ideally, your novel will have a balance of these elements. Make sure your character has an objective and motivation that drive them, as well as a character need operating below the surface. Are you considering stakes? With everything you include in your novel outline, make sure to pre-emptively consider why that element matters.
Creating a Novel Outline: Organizing Your Chapters Into Parts
Now that you have summaries for each chapter, organize your chapters into sections, scenes, or “beats,” as they are called in the writing world. This will guarantee that your novel outline contains both story and substance at every turn. If characters are motivated to be proactive and work toward what they want, no matter the setbacks they encounter, there will be great momentum in your story. If there isn’t, you can always go back to your novel outline and see which sequences and chapters might be falling flat.
A best practice idea I use is that each beat or scene within each chapter either moves the character (or character relationships) forward, the plot forward (either in a positive or a negative direction, as you want to keep story tension high), or, ideally, both.
Include any plot twists, character developments, or changes in setting as necessary so that when reading through your outline everything makes sense. Make sure there is consistency throughout and that the scenes and chapters you’ve planned flow nicely from act to act (if you’re doing an outline in acts), or between the tentpole elements, above.
Crafting an effective novel outline is an important step to writing a tightly plotted and meticulously thought-out book. Doing all the thinking ahead of time via an outline helps you provide structure to your ideas and ensures continuity among chapters, characters, settings, and plot points within the story. To create the perfect novel outline, think about your pitch first—including characters, genres, main plot points, and any other relevant elements. Then summarize each chapter in bullet points or short sentences, and finally, get more granular, dividing your chapters into scenes or beats.
Make sure to add in plot twists (if relevant to your genre), tension, stakes, and surprises to keep readers engaged. Doing this will help your story read smoothly, and will ensure that you are creating emotional resonance with your readers. With careful planning and organization, you can make your novel outline work for you over the course of drafting, revision, and beyond.
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