#MINISERIES Novel Outlining

Now’s the time to start putting all of your ideas and notes into a plot. It's the stage where you take your players — your characters, and let them move around the stage — the world.

The easiest way to go about this is to do it chronologically. I don’t mean this as the chronology within your novel, but the order in which you’re going to write the book. Here is where you take all those interesting character interactions, and all the details of your world, and let them run with your story.

It’s at this point you might find your original idea changing. This is entirely natural. In fact, it’s encouraged. Changes at this stage might feel major, but this is when you should be making the big changes and the major decisions. It’s how the plot grows and thickens, so to speak, and evolves into something altogether more powerful or richer. That way, when you come to writing, all you have to worry about is following your characters over the pages.

Let's break it down

What I advise is writing a chapter-by-chapter, bulleted breakdown of the actions and reactions that happen throughout your story. This approach will provide you with a full view of where the story leads and how it ends. It will allow you to chart every dip, rise, and fall of the pace, which we’ll talk about in the next installment. It also lets you drill down to individual scenes, swapping or strengthening them where needed.

This master plan and your notes will be your buddies throughout the writing process – evolving with you as you write, helping you to stay consistent, and providing you with the ability to see the whole plot in micro and macro detail.

creating a detailed plan of your novel’s plot gives you an excellent overview of how everything knits together. This master plan is particularly important for ensuring the pace of the plot keeps the reader entertained and engaged. Even a great plot can be ruined by the wrong pacing, whether it’s too slow or too fast, or all bunched up towards the climax — which often happens with a first novel.

Pace can be set using the words on the page, as well as through the structure of the book.

Short sentences, punchier descriptions, and short chapters give the sense of a fast pace.

Long chapters and detailed descriptions throughout will provide a slower pace.

I believe that intrigue comes from a changing of pace. A book that is fast all the way through leaves no respite for thought. One that constantly moves at a snail’s pace could be too boring. By varying the tempo, letting it rise and fall, or gradually build, makes for a more interesting read.

Graph your story's pace

I recommend drawing a simple line graph to chart the rise and fall of your plot’s pacing. If at any point you feel it’s too linear, or you think it rises and falls in the wrong places, think what you could amend or create to change the pace.

You can also be clever with your pacing, tricking the reader with a false denouement maybe, or employing a fast-paced scene at the beginning of your novel for hooking readers in – almost every James Bond film uses this tactic.

With the pacing sorted, it’s now out of the planning stage and time to dive straight into the writing!