Outlining for Pantsers
In last week's post, I mentioned that my main current writing goal is to finish the draft of a novel that I've been thinking about for a couple of years now but have been struggling to get down on paper. Normally, I'm a pantser. I might have a rough idea of where I want a story to go when I start it (though I don't always), but I don't sit down and plan it out. My preferred approach is to discover the story as I write it, then refine the arc and give it a more intentional-feeling pacing and flow during edits. This has worked for me thus far for the majority of my projects. It works especially well for short stories, but I've also written a couple of novellas and four novels this way, so I have tangible proof that it can work for longer stories, too.
That said, I have written some select projects in the past that I planned out before writing. Any time I write a choose-your-own-adventure style story, for instance, I at least have a big-picture plan for how the pieces are going to flow together from the start. And when I'm ghostwriting novels, those always start from the outline first—it's the only way to wrangle the project in and make sure me and the client are on the same page from the start.
Of course, just because I know how to outline doesn't mean I enjoy it. To me, pantsing feels more organic and allows for more natural points of surprise. When I write a character into a corner, I need to be creative to get them out of it, in exactly the same way the character needs to be creative to get out of whatever bind I've put them into. What I've been reminding myself of lately, though, is that outlining doesn't need to mean putting rigid controls on what you write. There's a middle ground where you can get the thought-organizing, momentum-driving, rewrite-reducing benefits of an outline while still letting your story breathe and surprise you. With that in mind, here is my top advice for pantsers who are outline-curious on how to make the technique work for you.
#1: Don't limit yourself to just plot movement.
One issue with stories written from an outline is that they can feel formulaic or overly architected. Sometimes you read them and can see the author moving the pieces around, or the characters feel like they're being directed through a series of actions rather than having those choices seem like their own, ones that arise out of their motivations, beliefs, and identity rather than something imposed by the person creating the story.
While I can't confirm exactly why this happens in every instance, I suspect the problem often starts with what the writer focuses on when creating their outline. If you only think about how the plot will move, you're missing a critical ingredient of a compelling story: the development of the characters, and how their emotions, relationships, and motivations influence the choices they make and actions they take.
An outline does need to clarify the plot movement, but that's not the only thing that should be in it. At each stage of the outline, think about the key players involved, how their prior experiences and beliefs influence what actions they'd take, how those actions move them closer to (or away from) their ultimate goal, and what impact each plot point would have on their emotional state, their relationships with other characters, and the choices they'd make in the future. An authentic character that's well-integrated into the plot and setting shouldn't be static. They change in response to the experiences you write for them, and planning out that evolution is just as important to creating a fully realized story as plotting out the story's action.
#2: Let yourself take tangents.
One of the exciting things about pantsing is that I sometimes end up discovering new ways for the story to play out as I write, things that were never even in my brain when I first sat down to work on it. But you don't need to sacrifice this when you start from an outline if you take the same exploratory approach to writing it.
Instead of just seeing the outline as a straight line from A to B to C, let yourself linger at each step and think about the different ways your characters might approach the situation. If you find yourself at a plot crossroads where you could take multiple paths forward, use the outline process to “audition” those paths and see which one will serve the story the best. One might stand out as the best option once you've finished the outline and know where you want the story to go. In other cases, you can wait to decide which path you’ll take until you're in the writing stage, when you'll be able to better assess which one seems like the most logical decision for your characters at that point of their journey.
The same idea can apply to filling in details of the characters' and world's history. When you reach a point that this backstory feels necessary to understand the choices characters make, or to get a full sense for the cultural, political, economic, etc. landscape that they're operating in, give yourself permission to go on a sidebar. Outline those backstory details the same way you would forward plot movement. That doesn't mean you'll necessarily include all of that information at this specific point in the story—these may be worldbuilding details that you want to sprinkle in through descriptions, or character context that you'll establish through conversations and flashbacks as you're building their identity on the page. But by brainstorming those background details as they come up, you'll give yourself a roadmap for which aspects of the world history or characters' past are actually need-to-know for the reader. Once you know that, all you need to do is find the right time and place to bring readers in on that knowledge.
#3: Use whatever format makes sense for your brain.
Most people hear the word “outline” and think about the specific structured document that we're all taught to write for high school English, the kind that involves various levels of numbering and indenting and bullet points. This is one way to approach outlining a creative work, but that's not the only option. If thinking about things that way automatically kills all of your creativity or gives you flashbacks to writing five-paragraph essays, you can still get the same value out of doing things in a different format.
I’ll give some examples of other options. One way you can approach it is by writing a script-style outline. This can be especially effective for character-driven stories where conversations are going to be key plot drivers. With this style of outline, you write out many of the dialogue passages, surrounded by scene direction style summaries of their actions and expressions, as well as the setting and any other background information that you plan to work into the narrative. This is a kind of middle ground between outlining and pantsing. On your next pass, you convert this into full prose by filling in the narration and descriptive details around the dialogue, using the scene directions you wrote as a guide.
Another option is to use a notecard outlining system. The basic idea here is that each chunk of the story (scene, chapter, plot point, etc.) gets its own notecard, where you can also write down things like the characters involved, where it's happening, and other details you'll want to make sure to include. This is the approach I default to when I'm doing choose-your-own narratives, since it makes it easier to visualize how the different plot choices branch off from each other, but it can be just as useful for other types of stories. I would say this is an especially good approach for more complex novels that have multiple plot threads or large casts of characters, because it also allows you to easily isolate each of these threads and experiment with different approaches to weaving them together.
There are other options too, I'm sure, or you could come up with your own if none of the other approaches that people have tried seem like they'd work. The big-picture takeaway here is that there's more than one way to outline, and you don't need to lock yourself into anybody else's system.
Outlines are tools, not rules
This was the big thing I needed to get into my own head before I could start to take advantage of outlining as a part of my process. I've heard a similar thing from other pantsers—that the idea of writing an outline feels restrictive, like it's preventing your creativity from having full room to blossom. But here's the thing about an outline: literally nobody else is going to see it. It doesn’t matter if it follows the rules or adheres to someone else’s standard. It's just a way to plan and organize your story before you start writing it. If you feel too constrained with a chapter-by-chapter outline, for instance, then you don't need to use that format. Maybe instead you just give yourself some key plot points to shoot for, and wait until you're writing it to decide where the chapter breaks will go.
For the current novel, I'm starting with a big-picture outline divided into three acts. I've sketched out the basic plot movement and which characters will be involved, as well as how their motivations or allegiances will change over the course of the book. I plan to gradually reveal certain aspects of the world and characters to the reader, so I've also marked in the points where key info bits are going to be dropped. But there are some places where I haven't yet planned out exactly how the characters are going to get from one plot moment to the next—I know where I want them to end up, but I'm going to let myself figure out exactly how they get there when I sit down to write the thing. This kind of half-outlining gives me the structure I need to construct a complex plot involving a large cast of characters, so I'm not just stumbling around in the metaphorical woods for 30,000 words (like I did on my first attempt to write this novel a couple of years back), but it still leaves me some room to play when it's time for writing. That's important, because the actual act of writing a novel can be obnoxiously long and tedious, and it's even more so for me when I'm following a detailed outline and know exactly what comes next. Leaving myself some places to explore and make creative decisions during the writing phase I know is going to be crucial to forcing myself through those points where the writing doesn't feel exciting.
That's the last tidbit of advice I'll end on. Writing a book takes a while. Experienced writers on the fast side of things can churn out a manuscript in 2-3 months, but for most people I'd say 6 months to a year is more realistic. In either case, though, you're going to be following this outline for a while, so it's smart to think about your writing process. Structure the outline in a way that will be easy for you to follow and matches up with how you prefer to write. If you like to work in chunks instead of writing through chronologically, for example, then doing a notecard system might be smart because it'll let you isolate or rearrange sections easily. The goal is to organize your thoughts and the story's structure, so whatever strategy will allow you to do that the best is the right tool for you, whether or not it matches with someone else's idea of what an outline should be.
See similar posts: