Outlining a novel might not be everyone’s favourite part of the writing process but it doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. As much as I love writing a scene outline for every scene in my stories, you might want to choose something simpler. A detailed outline will also be a lot easier to create after you’ve already written the short and more general outline.
That’s why every writer needs to learn how to outline a novel in these four easy steps.
The great thing about this process is that it divides your story into four parts which should all be roughly equal in length. That’s really going to help you figure out your word count and make sure different parts of your story are balanced. If you also want to use the three-act structure for your story, the 1st quarter is Act 1, 2nd and 3rd quarters are Act 2 and the final quarter is Act 3.
So let’s get started and see how this is done.
Related reading: My methods of outlining that make writing your novel a breeze – How to structure your story
Use story structure to outline your novel
What we’re talking about here is, of course, a simplified version of story structure. Learning about structure really changed everything for me and it’s a tremendous help in plotting a story that simply works.
Remember, structure isn’t the same thing as formula. It doesn’t make every story the same any more than having a skeleton makes every person look the same. If you’d like to learn more about it, I’ve written a post about story structure and I also offer this novel structure workshop that comes with a workbook.
1 / Life is normal until something big changes everything
Because every story (at least in Western storytelling) is about some kind of a problem, you need to start by showing us what your protagonist’s world is like before the problem arrives and ruins everything. Yes, the problem can have originated before your story starts, but your story is about how your protagonist gets involved with it. Perhaps the war has started years ago but your main character doesn’t get drafted until now, for example.
Mind you, don’t start too far before things change, we probably don’t need to hear the country’s five thousand years old history. Your protagonist should already be at a crossroads about something and we should have a feeling that something big is about to happen. If the ice is going to break from underneath us and plunge us into cold water, we should already be hearing the ice crack and creak.
When the big problem – or a big opportunity – finally comes, your readers should be saying “yup, that really is a big deal, I wonder how the protagonist will make it through”. The problem needs to be a real problem. If it’s something that most people could solve in five minutes, you either need to change the problem, change the protagonist or make sure we know WHY your protagonist would struggle with such a thing.
Sometimes the big problem is a big opportunity, like a job offer abroad or a proposal, but it still needs to have the power to change everything and pull the rug from under your main character. And sometimes a problem can later turn out to be an opportunity.
2 / Protagonist is reacting to the change until another problem arrives
In the second quarter of your story, your protagonist should be mainly reacting to the problem. They should be trying to get back on their feet, learning new things about this changed world and figuring out a game plan for dealing with the problem. If you’re writing romance, you should show your two characters falling in love during this part of the story.
Whatever happens in your novel and whatever genre you’re writing in, this is where you set up everything that happens later. This is especially important if you’re writing a plot twist.
Although your characters should be experiencing both wins and setbacks, there should be an overall sense of “things are going right” or “oh f#ck things really are going badly”. Your protagonist might even think they’ve got a handle on things now until another big event throws a spanner in the works somewhere around the middle of your story. Your characters are going to have to evaluate everything again. They could also learn important information that changes everything and makes all their previous plans useless.
3 / Things get even more difficult and eventually it all seems lost
If your protagonist thought they were in trouble before, things are really going awry now. However, your protagonist is no longer reacting to the big problem – they have become proactive. The big kerfuffle at the midpoint of your story changed things and it needs to lead to a complete change of tactics.
This is always the tensest part of a book or movie and your readers should be biting their nails worrying about your hero. Eventually, things should be going so badly that it all seems lost and it really looks like all the problems have beaten your protagonist despite all their best efforts.
Your hero should always be equipped with some kinds of flaws and misconceptions, and at least some of the problems need to be directly caused by the flaws. If all your problems are coming from the outside, you’re missing out on true depth and impact for your story. Remember, they were doing a lot of stuff in the previous quarter of your story, and here you’re reaping the results. Your protagonist was doing their best, but they never got things quite right, and this is where they pay for their mistakes.
Although everything seems hopeless, there’s one more thing your protagonist can do, but it’s going to require a huge sacrifice and they will risk losing everything. But because they finally learn to overcome their personal problems and flaws, they’re okay with the risk. They know now that they’re doing the right thing.
4 / Finally, all the problems get solved and there’s a new normal
Because of your protagonist’s final push, the big problem gets solved, even if it doesn’t work out the way they thought. Even if your protagonist doesn’t get what they wanted, they’ll get what they need. During the last quarter of your story, the loose ends get tied, the remaining set-ups pay off and the storyline winds down.
Remember, you can’t pull a solution out of nothing. Just like the problems that preceeded it, you need to have set up the solution the right way. Maybe your protagonist learned a new skill earlier in the story, maybe they’ve learned to trust themselves or maybe a mistake they made taught them something important. Whatever the solution to the big problem is, your protagonist needs to have learned it somehow, preferably through experience.
Because of the big problem and how it has been dealt with, things will never be the same again. Your hero has also changed after the crisis they suffered. There is a new normal, and we get a glimpse of what life looks like for your protagonist after the events of your story.
If you want to write an epilogue, it would come after your final glimpse of the new normal.
Does this work for all stories?
You absolutely can make this structure work for any story, but remember that if you’re writing a novel and not directing a Hollywood film, story structure is malleable. You can squish and stretch and bend it to suit your purposes, but in general, it’s still inescapable. It grows from inside stories like, uhh, something else that grows from the inside. Inverted moss. Don’t look at me, I’m not a biologist.
It depends on your tone, genre and intended audience what you make all this mean. For example, when things are really dark and your protagonist loses all hope, it’s going to be very different for a dark dystopian hero than it is for a middle-grade main character. Still, you need to push your characters to their respective limits or else you risk writing a lukewarm story.
A lot of story structure is just logic. Cause and effect. Set-ups and pay-offs. If you want something to happen, you need to lay the groundwork first. Think of a swing or a pendulum: if you want it to go high, you first need to pull it back far enough. These are the kinds of physics you can’t escape from when writing a story that actually makes sense.
Get an easy way to plot your story
I’ve helped thousands of writers with my digital products and my favourite tools are always the ones that help you plot your story.
If you’d like a simple printable, my quick outline grid gives you the four steps I’ve detailed in this post. It comes with instructions so you won’t necessarily have to come back to this blog post, and although I just called it a “printable”, you can also fill out the PDF on your computer.
For a little more robust plotting, I’ve got the Google Docs novel outline template that walks you through 13 different structure points so that you know exactly what kind of a journey to take your protagonist on. You can use the template to plan your story but you could also write it fully there on Google Docs after planning it.
If you’d like to see your plot on one page instead, the digital structure map has you briefly describe your most important plot events on Google Sheets.
Whether you get any of these writer’s tools or not, I hope this post has been helpful for your plotting process!
Protagonist Crafts is a blog about writing fiction, written by a published author and creative writing teacher. You can find more writing tips and inspiration in the blog and you can get the best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.
