Why you should outline your novel

For many writers the thought of creating an outline is almost sacrilegious to how they write. That’s fine, but don’t knock it till you try it.

I have tried both writing from the hip, so to speak, and creating an outline. For me I’ve found that creating an outline really keeps me focused. In addition, when I sit down to do my writing it’s the ladder that I cling to, to help me keep moving up and creating more. The outline allows me to sit down and say, “Okay, I here I am and I need to get to here, so how am I going to do that today?”

Some people think that the creativity of writing is stifled by the outline. That might be for some, but for me I like to know how things are going to pan out. That’s not to say that things will surprise me throughout the writing process, far from it actually. What I’m talking about is knowing the major events that are going to happen in the book so that there is a logical road map to follow.

I will create a thirty-page outline for a full-length novel. In this outline I have all the major events and what all the major characters are doing. Now when I sit down to write is when the magic comes out of my fingers. I don’t feel the outline is impeding my creativity since I have to flesh out what the characters are going to say and how each one would go about saying it. Second, a writing outline is just that- an outline. I might deviate away from the outline, or after writing thirty thousand words, I might add new scenes from developments that I’ve just come up with.

For me an outline is a way to know what to do next within my novel that I’m creating. It is a way to be able to defeat the horror of the blank screen or page. If you haven’t tried to use an outline, I suggest giving it a go before deciding that it’s not for you. That’s what I thought too, before I tried it, now I wouldn’t do it any other way.