How I Outlined My Novel

I am currently in the works of writing the first draft of my young adult contemporary novel. I have always tried writing stories, but either stopped because I was bored with them, or had no idea where the story was going. I had previously gotten up to 32, 000 words with the same story I am writing now, but decided to stop because I felt like the story and the point of view were all over the place. That is when I decided I needed to outline. 

I tried outlining before, but I always gave up and just started writing the story because I could never find a way to outline that worked for me. I always wondered how much or little detail I should put in the outline, however, I feel like I have found a happy medium with my outline. I didn't want to put in too much detail so that I had no room to write, but I didn't want to put in too little detail in which it was too general.

Setting:

In order to start my outline, I figured out the setting and the characters before I started on the plot. Therefore, I first listed the possible settings in which my story could take place. I listed a couple cities and towns where the characters could live, and a link to Neighborhood Scout to help me find the right setting. This process is still in the works, but I have a general idea of where I want the story to take place. You don't have to know your setting right away unless it is an integral part of your story.



Characters:
After that, I listed the characters. Initially, I listed the main characters first and the secondary characters later, but I found that to be unorganized because the story is about teenagers whose parents and families are involved in their lives. Therefore, I listed the characters by families. Each family has a section with a heading of their last name (ex: The Crawford Family), and all the family members listed below. The parents went first. They each had physical and personal characteristics about them such as looks, occupation, and hobbies. Next, I listed the children who are the main characters. Therefore, I centered their information on the page and included more in depth in their profile. Their information included their looks, likes, dislikes, music taste, birthday and celebrity look alike. I also color coordinated each family so each family had their names a specific color. The Crawford family's color was baby blue, therefore, when I colored the main children their colors were slightly different from the rest of the family to show they were more important. You don't have to color code, but I enjoyed doing that. After the children comes extra family members such as grandparents, cousins, or other siblings that are not in much of the story. Each family has a different page in order to organize them properly, but also their information is long and takes up most of the page, so I did not want to divide family information between pages.
After I finished the main characters, I added a short list of minor characters that did not play a real role in the story, however they were connected to some of the more important characters. An example of this would be a pastor or a student. After this, I listed a bunch of settings that I wanted to include in my story, or just frequent settings where the characters spent their time. You could also include a list of events that need to happen in the story to make sure you include them in your outline and novel. Now, on with the actual outline.

Outline Format:

A year ago, I bought 90 Days to Your Novel by Sarah Domet, and this book helped me find the perfect outline. It gave several different options, and I first tried the index card method, but I found it hard to keep all my index cards in one place. My outlining process ended up being a mix of all the outlines in the book put together.

Here's what it looks like:

1. (Scene Number) 

    Setting:

    Characters:

    Purpose:

    Summary:

I document every scene so I can know everything that happens in the story instead of just doing it by chapter. 

The setting can be general like "the school" or specific like "Mr. Aldridge's classroom third period."  

For the characters, I list every character that appears in the scene. Sometimes I list everyone in the scene even if they have no action or dialogue. But, sometimes I list the main characters in the scene because there are too many characters in a scene to list all of them. 

The purpose is to make sure the scene has a point and will move the plot forward. The purpose could be something like, "To introduce Sarah into the story," or it can be "To cause a complication in Matt's life." If you know the purpose of your scenes, you'll be less likely to cut pointless scenes out of your novel.

The summary section is self explanatory. You sum up the scene, talking about everything that occurred. You can be specific and state every action that the characters do, or every conversation they have, or you can give the gist of the scene and leave room for imagination. I give the gist of each scene, therefore, when I started writing I made up everything as I went throughout the story.
After I finished all my scenes I went back and checked to see if everything was there and if i wanted to add anything. My outline ended up being 78 scenes and 26 pages including characters. After that, I went back and divided my scenes into chapters. Your scenes can be chapters themselves, but some of my scenes were short so I merged multiple scenes together to create one chapter. I ended up with 43 chapters. I am not finished writing, but after I am done, some of these things will probably be different because of me adding and taking away scenes and chapters in my story.

I like this method of outlining because it makes sure I have everything I want in my story so I won't have too big of a headache during the editing process. I hope this outline is helpful and helps move stories along.  

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