When I started writing my first novel, I had little more than a few vague scenes dancing around in my head… which resulted in a confusing story with erratic characters. Thankfully, my next two novels were much more structured. I learned about story beats and character arcs; I devoured craft books; and eventually, I embraced the brilliance of outlining.
Like many authors, I was once afraid that my imagination would be stifled if I mapped out my entire story, and that the end result would seem formulaic. But detailed planning has helped me learn how to build immersive worlds with vivid characters, providing direction and allowing me to solve plot problems more creatively.
If you’ve struggled with outlining or don’t know where to start, here are the seven steps I follow to outline my novels.
1. Start with your blurb
Before you write a single sentence or even outline a scene, you’ll need to spend time crafting your blurb.
When I first heard about this approach, it felt counterintuitive. How was I supposed to know anything about my story before writing it? But I quickly learned that’s exactly why it’s the best place to start. Writing out blurbs has helped me learn the difference between a merely “cool” idea and an idea that can carry an entire novel.
♥️ Find the heart of your story
The blurb serves as a compass, providing direction not just while you’re outlining, but also while you’re writing. It forces you to think of the elements of your story from a big-picture perspective, so you can focus on moving toward a satisfying end.
Try to write around 250 words for your blurb. Your goal is to find the heart of your story, and you can do that by asking a few questions:
- Who is the main character?
- What do they want?
- What is in the way of them getting what they want?
- What choice will they make to overcome that obstacle?
- What do they want, and what do they actually need?
A strong blurb should excite readers and agents alike. It should make them ask questions they simply have to find the answers to.
2. Create your characters
While plot is obviously important, characters are the beating heart of your novel — which is why this step comes next, before any further “plot-based” outlining. With your blurb in mind, spend time thinking about everyone’s backstories, characteristics, and whether their decisions are natural and true to who they are.
Every character has an internal arc they need to follow as they progress through the story. Who they are has to match the thing they want. What a teenager wants, for example, will typically be very different from what a middle-aged parent desires.
The choices your characters make to overcome obstacles, and the life lessons they learn, have to make sense given their past and present. Everyone sees problems differently and has unique strengths, abilities, and weaknesses. Your job as an author is to discover these facets of your character — and then bring them to life.
🧑 Try basing them on real people
Your character has to feel like a real person. (Someone you once worked with, or even just someone you’d meet at the grocery store.) Do some character research by observing the people around you, or by perusing memoirs and biographies.
I’ve found that studying real people and historical events gives fantastic insight into how “extraordinary” people operate. You can also look at different archetypes, personality profiles, or even psychological theories to understand what makes different people tick.
Don’t forget that the most important thing is to be consistent. If your character is afraid of letting people in, they shouldn’t instantly fall in love or trust a stranger immediately. The more real your characters feel, the more immersed and invested your readers will become.
Remember, without characters, a plot is just a random sequence of events. The story lives and dies with the characters involved.
3. Know what your genre requires
Readers pick up a book with certain expectations. If you’re holding a thriller, you might expect a ticking clock, a bad guy threatening the hero in a personal way, unexpected plot twists, and more.
So this next step is to understand the genre you’re writing and which elements it entails. For example, do you need a red herring (mystery) or forced proximity (romance)?
Every genre has tropes and story beats that readers expect on some level; the trick is to find ways to make them surprising and compelling.
🗺️ Map out your own beats and tropes
Familiarize yourself with the tropes and story beats that are popular in your genre — but don’t stop there. Take these basic beats and work on making them unique to your characters, world, and story.
Remember, these beats should function as the map of your novel. They’re the key points you need to hit in order to keep your story on track. Without them, your plot might deviate too much, and readers will get lost.
And no matter how many times you edit your novel, make sure these beats do not get cut. If they aren’t working in your plot, figure out why, then determine how to either a) make the beats fit, or b) revise your story to fit another genre… or perhaps to be a more intentional mish-mash of genres.
4. Plot your characters’ emotional beats
At this point, you’ll have a pretty broad outline that only covers the major beats of your story, with an overarching understanding of your characters. Now it’s time to add more layers by thinking about the internal, emotional journeys your characters need to take.
While their core personalities should stay the same throughout, the lessons they learn must resonate emotionally with the reader. The struggles, challenges, and heartaches they've faced should feel meaningful.
This goes beyond just presenting a happy ending; readers should see that character growth itself was essential for that happy ending to occur.
❓ “Ask” your characters deeper questions
This is where all that character work at the start of the outlining process comes into play. Take your characters and ask:
- Who are they at the beginning of this journey?
- How will the plot beats challenge them?
- What is the lie they tell themselves at the beginning of the story?
- What is the truth they must embrace to succeed?
- How will their decisions be flawed, and how will that influence the plot and their emotional journey?
The answers to these questions will connect readers to your story. They're what make readers cheer when the hero succeeds, and cry when their favorite side character dies.
In other words, to ensure your readers become emotionally invested, you need to develop your characters' internal journeys. Once again, character development is really the engine that “drives” your story from start to finish.
5. Develop your theme(s)
Even if you don’t think your novel has a specific message, every story that resonates with readers has some sort of underlying theme.
Think of the theme as a universal truth or principle your story explores. It could be something like true love conquering all, justice overcoming evil, or the resilience of the human spirit. Whether you're telling a coming-of-age story or exploring a character's struggle with grief, loss, corruption, or power, you should be able to home in on the most important theme(s).
Themes felt very elusive to me at first. But once I realized that the theme is simply what’s at the heart of my characters’ journeys, it clicked.
For example, if your theme is about the complex nature of family, all your characters should have something to say about it. Some might struggle with feeling like they belong, while others might feel trapped by their family.
🤫 But keep it subtle
A great story doesn’t hit the reader over the head with its theme — rather, it explores the theme’s facets in a way that reinforces the character’s emotional journey, letting readers come to their own conclusions.
If the blurb is your story’s compass, your plot is the map, and your characters are the heart, then the theme is your story’s guiding light. It keeps your characters moving forward (and your readers turning the pages).
6. Envision your world
All stories take place in a specific world. Even if you're writing a contemporary novel, the real world is still a world! While you may not need to create or reimagine real places like New York City, understanding what role the world plays in your story is still vital to plotting a novel.
Indeed, no matter where your story is set, there should be a reason for choosing that place. Two people can fall in love anywhere, but if you set your story in Omaha or London, there should be a compelling reason behind it. Every neighborhood, café, and office building should serve a purpose.
Don’t just treat your settings as mere backdrops — breathe life into them as you write.
🌅 Consider how setting reveals character
What does the world reveal to your reader about the people who live in it? What do the language, clothing, customs, and even the weather say about your characters?
Thinking about these details also offers an excellent opportunity to deepen your theme. The world you've created can introduce specific obstacles or even give your characters unique abilities.
In a science fiction or fantasy world in particular, creating a believable setting is important. Draw the reader in slowly so that they can suspend their disbelief and fully immerse themselves.
However, don't assume you can skip this step in the real world! If you're not familiar with the town, city, state, or country you're writing about, make sure to do your research.
7. Build out your chapters
You’re finally ready to outline your novel’s chapters. By now, you should have your major story beats and the emotional beats of your characters all plotted out. You’ll want to place those into your chapter breakdown at the right points.
For example, in a romance, the "meet cute" should happen early, within the first few chapters. In a fantasy, the inciting incident should occur within the first 12-15% of the book (the earlier, the better).
Once you know where these key beats should fall, build your story around them. How can you get your characters where they need to go in a way that a) makes sense, and b) is interesting?
🤸♀️ Be concise, and stay flexible
Aim for anywhere from a sentence to a paragraph for each chapter in your outline — that is, don’t feel like you need to into too much detail.
Also, if you find that parts of your outline don’t work as well as you'd hoped, don't be afraid to go back and adjust your characters, plot, or world! You might even need to tweak your blurb to match the changes in the story, and that’s okay.
Your outline shouldn’t be set in stone; it should be a living, breathing document that evolves and allows your story to bloom.
A solid outline can range anywhere from a loose skeleton that structures your story to a detailed document that may even serve as a first draft. Personally, I aim for a decent paragraph per chapter with the beats highlighted at the top. This becomes my “draft zero”, which I copy and paste into a new document from which to build draft one.
The truth is, there's no wrong way to outline a novel, and you'll likely find that each book starts a little differently. But no matter how you tackle your outline or draft, the most important thing is to just keep writing.
About the author
Jena Brown grew up playing make-believe in the Nevada desert, where her love for skeletons and harsh landscapes solidified. In addition to freelance writing, Jena blogs at www.jenabrownwrites.com. When she isn’t imagining deadly worlds, she and her husband keep busy being bossed around the Las Vegas desert by their two chihuahuas.
