the craft. outlining, friend or foe?

There are so many convos about whether to outline your work or not. To each their own, of course, but I want to tell you that personally, I find it has more advantages than not. Most often, I hear writers talk about not wanting to be stifled by the outline, but that’s not the case. I feel like an outline simply gives me a destination but I’m free to take multiple routes to get there.

When it comes to fiction, specifically writing in long-form like a book, it’s so easy to get lost when you’re just writing. Even if I start writing freely, eventually I’ll start to make a loose outline. Sometimes it’s so I don’t forget things I want to happen in the story while I’m writing other parts. Other times it’s so that I can keep better track of the plot.

You may have heard of distinctions between plotters and pansters in the novel world, but I just feel like I’m a little of both and many of you probably are as well. There are advantages to both so for me, I just take the best parts of each which makes my writing process a little more fluid.

What’s in an outline for a book?

Again, no hard rules here. But some things I like to have in my outlines are characters, maybe even profiles so I know who they are, their backstory, their desires. I also just like to kind of write summaries of the scenes. What happens next? Having this in order already helps me so that if I want to skip around in writing the story, I can always piece it back together based on the outline.

Outlining can also help you a lot with the plot. Sometimes it’s harder to see the holes or missing pieces after you’ve written 50,000 words. Zooming out on the work essentially helps you when zooming in.

Moving over to the freelance side of things, in personal essays, specifically, it’s so easy to ramble and what you don’t want is for someone to finish your piece and think “what was the point?” I have certainly felt this way after reading some things.

What’s in an outline for an article?

I find writing down three to five points around my main subject matter help me with a more concise story. My brain can be all over the place and I want to ensure that I am supporting my lead or thesis in the beginning in a way that’s easily digestible to the reader.

That very simple outline many of us had hammered into our heads as kids, Intro, three supporting paragraphs, and conclusion really does work. Of course, your work may be more detailed than three paragraphs, but essentially, everything you say in the middle should support what you said at the beginning and your ending should wrap it all up into a nice bow and let the reader know what they should take away from reading your work even if it’s more questions on your topic.

Whether you are super detailed or loose with outlines like me, I think they often get a bad rap. Outlining will not be for everyone and there’s nothing wrong with that. So much of writing is about finding out what works for you. For me, the more professional my writing became, the better it was for me to have a little more of an idea of where I wanted to go.

Happy Writing!

Do you use outlines? Tweet us @permtowrite and let us know!

Writing Opportunities

A Gathering Together is accepting submissions of previously unpublished essays, short stories, poetry, reviews, visual art, and film for our Fall 2020 issue. The extended current deadline for the fall issue is September 15th. For more information about our journal and submission formatting guidelines go to:

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