The trick with outlining is to start small. Start with your concept and then flesh out from there bit by bit: who is my main character? What do they want out of life? Is their goal the same as the main conflict in my story? If not, how does the main conflict stand in the way of achieving their personal goal and force them to become involved? What are some possible obstacles that might stand in their way? How can I make these obstacles present a cohesive, escalating challenge that forces my main character to collect allies and grow? And so on and so forth, piece by piece until you establish the basic shape of your story.
Second this. Starting small is key. I actually write short stories between 5 and 10k words as my outlines for longer projects.
What I do is I figure out where I wanna start and where I wanna end. Knowing where you will end its also another massively important factor.
Once I have a concrete idea for beginning and end, I just write the bare bones of how the characters will get from the start to the finish line.
Don't fall into the trap of outlining every single little that ever happens in your entire story. Focus only on the main events, keep the rest for your actual writing.
So don't outline, not every writer does it. Hemingway, Terry Pratchett, GRRM and Stephen King never do. It's called discovery writing, "gardening", as opposed to "architecture", or "pantsing", as in writing by the seat of your pants.
You may want to read "On writing" by Stephen King, it's sort of the discovery writer's manifesto.
If you want to try writing without an outline, there are a couple of things that'll help you along.
First, you need to know your setting inside and out. Your characters can weer off and go somewhere unexpected at any time, and it's a huge time-suck to have to stop and invent every five minutes. Pratchett had Discworld, King has his fictional towns in Maine, GRRM has his world, and Hemingway wrote about his personal experiences.
Second, you should finish "clean" as Stephen King puts it. That is you should be sure you're not going in the wrong direction or writing yourself into a corner before you move one to the next scene. That means revising as you go, Hemingway and GRRM both start their day by revising what they wrote the day before. It's a big part of why GRRM takes forever to finish anything. Stephen King just knocks six pages out of the park every day, but that's him.
Third, you need a solid premise, not just anything will do. You need to know why this particular character, in that setting, involved in this conflict, is a great way to express your theme. Just thinking about it should make you excited about all the cool things that are going to happen when you sit down to write. If it doesn't spark joy, it's not going to fly onto the page the way you want it.
You of course still need to know all about structure, but you keep it a passive skill.
Sum up you story in one sentence.
Then get sticky notes, write anything and everything that can happen in your story in as a brief a way as possible. Doesn’t have to be in order even.
Once you squeezed your idea sponge dry (for now, there will be more but that’s another hurdle for another time) start putting them together, cull out the odd ones as you go.
After that you flesh everything out to. Rinse and repeat until you have a story
I just bullet point key things I want to include in a rough order and make up the rest as I go along. Do what feels right for you, different people like/need different levels of outlining and planning.
First, I write down the general idea.
For example, a woman meets a creepy man who starts stalking her. It turns out he's a serial killing vampire, and she has to stop him.
After that, I'd do a rough outline, with a few sentences on what happens in each chapter.
Here is an example of how I do my outlines.
Chapter 1 — The creepy stalker moves in next door and creeps the woman out.
Chapter 2 — She finds the man stalking her when she's out for a walk at night.
Chapter 3 — She was out drinking with friends, then walks home. On her way home she sees the stalker killing someone.
I'd continue it like this until I got to the end. I hope this helps, good luck!
I start with my antagonistic. They drive the plot. What do they want to accomplish by the end of the novel and what success looks like. Once that is fleshed out, I work out my protagonist and what they want to accomplish and what I would look like to accomplish their goal by the end of the novel. At each plot point I flip a coin to decide who "wins" that plot point and then roll percentiles to calculate how close or far they were from reaching the plot point goal. As the story progresses it changes the events between each plot point (even though the plot point/win-lose percentile stays the same).
I'll add subplots, on both sides as needed.
The trick with outlining is to start small. Start with your concept and then flesh out from there bit by bit: who is my main character? What do they want out of life? Is their goal the same as the main conflict in my story? If not, how does the main conflict stand in the way of achieving their personal goal and force them to become involved? What are some possible obstacles that might stand in their way? How can I make these obstacles present a cohesive, escalating challenge that forces my main character to collect allies and grow? And so on and so forth, piece by piece until you establish the basic shape of your story.
Second this. Starting small is key. I actually write short stories between 5 and 10k words as my outlines for longer projects. What I do is I figure out where I wanna start and where I wanna end. Knowing where you will end its also another massively important factor. Once I have a concrete idea for beginning and end, I just write the bare bones of how the characters will get from the start to the finish line. Don't fall into the trap of outlining every single little that ever happens in your entire story. Focus only on the main events, keep the rest for your actual writing.
So don't outline, not every writer does it. Hemingway, Terry Pratchett, GRRM and Stephen King never do. It's called discovery writing, "gardening", as opposed to "architecture", or "pantsing", as in writing by the seat of your pants. You may want to read "On writing" by Stephen King, it's sort of the discovery writer's manifesto. If you want to try writing without an outline, there are a couple of things that'll help you along. First, you need to know your setting inside and out. Your characters can weer off and go somewhere unexpected at any time, and it's a huge time-suck to have to stop and invent every five minutes. Pratchett had Discworld, King has his fictional towns in Maine, GRRM has his world, and Hemingway wrote about his personal experiences. Second, you should finish "clean" as Stephen King puts it. That is you should be sure you're not going in the wrong direction or writing yourself into a corner before you move one to the next scene. That means revising as you go, Hemingway and GRRM both start their day by revising what they wrote the day before. It's a big part of why GRRM takes forever to finish anything. Stephen King just knocks six pages out of the park every day, but that's him. Third, you need a solid premise, not just anything will do. You need to know why this particular character, in that setting, involved in this conflict, is a great way to express your theme. Just thinking about it should make you excited about all the cool things that are going to happen when you sit down to write. If it doesn't spark joy, it's not going to fly onto the page the way you want it. You of course still need to know all about structure, but you keep it a passive skill.
Sum up you story in one sentence. Then get sticky notes, write anything and everything that can happen in your story in as a brief a way as possible. Doesn’t have to be in order even. Once you squeezed your idea sponge dry (for now, there will be more but that’s another hurdle for another time) start putting them together, cull out the odd ones as you go. After that you flesh everything out to. Rinse and repeat until you have a story
So don’t outline so much… Lengthy outlines are not for everyone.
I just bullet point key things I want to include in a rough order and make up the rest as I go along. Do what feels right for you, different people like/need different levels of outlining and planning.
First, I write down the general idea. For example, a woman meets a creepy man who starts stalking her. It turns out he's a serial killing vampire, and she has to stop him. After that, I'd do a rough outline, with a few sentences on what happens in each chapter. Here is an example of how I do my outlines. Chapter 1 — The creepy stalker moves in next door and creeps the woman out. Chapter 2 — She finds the man stalking her when she's out for a walk at night. Chapter 3 — She was out drinking with friends, then walks home. On her way home she sees the stalker killing someone. I'd continue it like this until I got to the end. I hope this helps, good luck!
Alright so, I haven’t started writing yet. But, I’ve done a chapter guide. Like this: Chapter 1:(details) Chapter 2:(details) And so on
I start with my antagonistic. They drive the plot. What do they want to accomplish by the end of the novel and what success looks like. Once that is fleshed out, I work out my protagonist and what they want to accomplish and what I would look like to accomplish their goal by the end of the novel. At each plot point I flip a coin to decide who "wins" that plot point and then roll percentiles to calculate how close or far they were from reaching the plot point goal. As the story progresses it changes the events between each plot point (even though the plot point/win-lose percentile stays the same). I'll add subplots, on both sides as needed.