There’s a division among fiction writers: those who outline their projects and those who wing it.
The outliners say they could never organize their plots, sub-plots or character arcs without drawing out the architecture of their story, separate from the narrative.
The non-outliners say their process is more spontaneous, and necessarily so. They need to let the story happen to them, and they consider outlining a tedious chore that results in an uninspiring, paint-by-numbers project.
(I suspect that non-outliners often overstate their freedom from outlining. To be a successful writer, you need—at least—to submit a plot synopsis at some point in the publishing process. And unless you are a certified genius, which few of us are, I don’t think it’s possible to keep all the many details of a 60-100K word story laid out logically in your head).
I consider myself a reluctant outliner. I absolutely abhor it, and I only fall back on outlining when I start losing track of my story, usually around 20-30K words. Even then, I’m resistant to outlining further than I’ve written, a sort of outline-as-you-go technique. I don’t recommend this approach. While it satisfies my need to write unfettered, with a childlike sense of possibility, I’ve blindly hit walls on many occasions because I’m not committed to the way ahead.
There are many outline resources. Here’s a familiar romance outline:
Boy meets boy
Boy loses boy
Boy gets boy back again
Or,
Hero has a problem
Hero tries to fix the problem (usually through three tries)
Hero overcomes the problem
These broad sections of the story coincide with the dramatic structure: Act I, Act II and Act III. Or you can do Act I – V if you want to include falling action and denouement.
The first plot diagram was created by German playwright and novelist Gustav Freytag and has become known as Freytag’s Pyramid. Here it is in its simplest form (swiped from Wikipedia).
Its a helpful way to visualize the dynamic of rising tension, or stakes. As novel writing how-to author Jack Bickham puts it: the further along your story goes, the worse shape your hero should be in (paraphrased). A good example is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The hero Uncle Tom, a mid-19th century American slave, gets passed from owner to owner, one worse than the next, and ends up in the hands of super-villain Simon Legree.
For epic fantasy, the standard structural guide is Joseph Campbell’s monomyth or The Hero’s Journey, which is a much more detailed outline. I found this interesting chart about it at Wikipedia.
