From Start to Finish: Ways to Outline a Story

Hey, writers, guess what? November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, a time dedicated to challenging writers to complete 50,000 words—about the length of a short novel—in one month. The goal of the challenge is to get writers to write without thinking too much and just go for it without worrying about perfection. After all, the first step to getting any writing done is by writing! 

Typically during the month of October, writers who intend to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge complete an outline of some kind to make the writing process smoother and easier. Of course, not everyone does this—some people are “pantsers” who prefer to write stories “by the seat of their pants.” But whether you intend to participate in NaNoWriMo, or you just want some tips on getting started on your own outline for any kind of story, read on to discover different types of outlines and how to use them in this blog. 

*Warning: This blog contains major spoilers for The Hobbit by J R.R. Tolkien, as it is used for several examples!

The Importance of Outlining

Outlines help create cohesive, thematic narratives that make an impact with audiences. They are crucial to all kinds of storytelling. Although I have been resistant to utilizing outlines for years, I’ve come to realize just how many benefits they provide, including:

1. Providing structure. Outlines help form the general structure of a story, making it easier to put that story on the page. 
2. Tempering pacing. Because they provide structure, you can use outlines to make sure your story feels balanced between expository, dramatic, and action scenes. 
3. Aiding character development. Outlines can help highlight how your characters grow throughout the story, and then you can further work this into the overall plot.
4. Progressing the plot. Of course, the major benefit of outlining is to get down on the page the main elements of your plot. What happens first, next, and last? How do characters get from point A to point B? Outlines are a way to test out what’s going to work in your story and what you may need more or less of. 
5. Determining research areas. By crafting an outline, you can narrow down which areas of a story you may need to do more research for—which, as we know, is the secret ingredient to writing good stories. 

Outlines can be adapted for various types of writing, from short to long form pieces. Even poems can benefit from a short outline and, the longer the piece, the more likely you are to need an outline for it. But not all outlines have to look the same. Some people will benefit from extremely structured, detailed, and well-planned outlines. Others may even start writing first, without one, and then craft a loose outline based on what’s already on the page and adapt it from there. Others still will revise their outline as they go, adapting it to the turns the story makes as it unfolds. All kinds of outlines exist, so let’s explore a few and how to create them. 

Forms of Outlines

There are many types of outlines out there which can be adapted for many different kinds of storytelling. You can choose one of the below and work with it as is, or you can utilize a template and adapt it over time to fit your needs. Either way, here are a few standout storytelling outlines:

The Three-Act Structure

This loose outline form divides a story into three parts, each anchored around one or more plot points that drive the overall action. It’s often used for longer-form content, such as novels. Note that the below examples contain spoilers for The Hobbit by J. R.R. Tolkien.

• Act One: The most expository act, the scenes will introduce the story’s characters and setting. At the end of it, an Inciting Incident occurs which propels the following events of the story and sets the protagonist on the course of their transformative journey.  Finally, a Turning Point launches the story into Act Two.
  • Example: Act One of The Hobbit opens with us meeting the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, who lives a quiet, peaceful life in Bag End. Then, the Inciting Incident occurs, in which Gandalf appears and persuades Bilbo to join him and a group of thirteen dwarves on a journey to steal a jewel from Smaug, a dragon, for the dwarf king Thorin. The Turning Point is when Bilbo decides to abandon Bag End and leave on the adventure with the dwarves, thus launching Act Two.
• Act Two: Typically consisting of about 50% of the story, Act Two consists of rising action, development of the conflict, and a midpoint wherein the protagonist faces some kind of low—a defeat, injury, death, or other befalling experience.
  • Example: In The Hobbit, Bilbo faces many challenges along his journey, including being captured by trolls, meeting the elves at Rivendell, being chased by goblins and then Gollum, discovering The One Ring, escaping Wargs, encountering giant Spiders, escaping wood elves, and reaching Lake Town. The Midpoint of the story occurs when Bilbo successfully steals the jewel from Smaug, but in doing so, awakens the dragon, who burns Lake Town to the ground. This causes the humans and wood elves to march on The Lonely Mountain for aid and retribution. However, driven by greed, Thorin refuses them, thus starting a war. To avert this, Bilbo offers the jewel to the humans and elves as a peace offering but is scorned by Thorin for doing so. Losing Thorin’s trust is Bilbo’s low point.
• Act Three: This final act consists of the climax, falling action, and conflict resolution. At the end, the hero returns to their normal life but is changed forever. Act Three must start off with the most dramatic moment of the story and then wrap up all of the preceding events.
  • Example: In the climax of The Hobbit, the humans, elves, and dwarves are about to go to battle each other but are interrupted by the arrival of an army of goblins and Wargs. They ally together in order to fight off the evil forces, and in the battle Thorin dies. After the battle is over, Gandalf returns Bilbo to Hobbiton a changed hobbit.

The Three-Act Structure provides a simple framework to follow while maintaining focus on the main character, conflict, and major events of the story. Most stories following this format also include subplots—side storylines that don’t necessarily fit into the major conflict. Here’s a general outline for a Three-Act Structure that you can copy and paste into a document to fill out. To complete it, write a brief description or sentence for each section. Feel free to add more or eliminate as needed and remember that pretty much any kind of story, whether it’s a script, poem, or novel, can utilize this kind of outline. 

1. Act 1
   1. Setting:
   2. Protagonist: 
   3. Side Characters: 
   4. Major Conflict: 
   5. Inciting Incident: 
2. Act 2:
   1. Rising Action:
      1. Event 1:
      2. Event 2: 
      3. Event 3: 
   2. Midpoint Incident: 
3. Act 3:
   1. Pre-Climax: 
   2. Climax:
   3. Falling Action:
   4. Conclusion: 

Save the Cat!

American screenwriter Blake Snyder initially created this story structure for movies. However, it can easily be adapted for novels and other forms of storytelling. It applies the same idea as the Three-Act Structure while including fifteen plot beats that appear in many American Hollywood films. It is the standard for a sellable movie script in Hollywood.

1. Act I: Exposition — Build the world, introduce the major characters, and establish the major conflict of the story.
   1. Beat 1: Opening Image — A brief moment shows us who the protagonist is and what their current world is like. Here’s where the actual “Save the Cat” moment usually happens, too—the protagonist does a small good deed, like saving a cat from a tree, that establishes to the audience that they are the hero of the film. 
   2. Beat 2: Theme Stated — The story relays to the audience the life lesson the hero must learn over the course of the story, or the underlying theme that causes them to go through a profound transformation. 
   3. Beat 3: Setup — We learn the hero’s present circumstances, including what their current primary goal is, and get to know side characters.
   4. Beat 4: Catalyst — Sets of the major events of the story that will ultimately cause the transformation in the hero. 
   5. Beat 5: Debate — Before the hero embarks on their journey, they waver, asking questions like: Should I do this? Can I do this? Am I the right person to do this?
2. Act II: New World — The hero enters a new world, experiences ups and downs, faces challenges, and meets new characters who change them.
   1. Beat 6: Break Into Two — Act II takes off with the hero taking the action required by the Catalyst, thus launching them on their transformative journey.
   2. Beat 7: B Story — A subplot appears! Often, the B Story revolves around a new character, such as a love interest, mentor, friend, or nemesis who helps the hero learn their ultimate lesson. 
   3. Beat 8: Fun & Games — The longest beat of the story, this is a series of challenges that the hero must overcome in order to explore their new world. Although these challenges aren’t always “fun” for the protagonist, the point is that we see them struggle and change as they approach the story’s Midpoint.
   4. Beat 9: Midpoint — During this pivotal moment, the hero experiences either a false victory or false defeat which raises the stakes and pushes them towards transformation. In a false victory, the hero thinks their problems are fixed and struggles are over. In a false defeat, they may worry they are doomed to failure. 
   5. Beat 10: Bad Guys Close In — If the hero experienced a false victory, at the Midpoint things will start to turn bad, helped by the hero’s flaws and lessons they still have to learn. If the hero experienced a false defeat, things should start to get easier and the change in the hero should start to be more obvious.
   6. Beat 11: All is Lost — Regardless of which direction the Midpoint took the story in, at this point, the hero must experience their lowest point yet and feel utterly defeated. 
   7. Beat 12: Dark Night of the Soul — In this moment, the hero experiences their most rock-bottom moment—utter defeat that they won’t know if they can rise from.  The moment should spur from their own actions or flaws.
3. Act III
   1. Beat 13: Break Into Three — The hero realizes that all isn’t lost and has an idea of how to fix their problems. 
   2. Beat 14: The Finale — The hero proves they’ve learned their lesson, changed, and can successfully enact a plan to fix their problems. 
   3. Beat 15: Final Image — A final snapshot of the hero, paralleling the Opening Image, shows us how they have been changed forever over the course of the story. 

The Save the Cat structure emphasizes character development and plot progression, ensuring that you hit key story beats and create an engaging story. Tip: Watch a movie—any American Hollywood movie—and see if you can apply the Save the Cat structure to the movie’s plot points.

The Hero’s Journey

We’ve already discussed this story structure at length, but it remains an essential and oft-used storytelling tool for all kinds of writers. It is a surefire way to capture the attention of your audience and create a transformative journey for your main character. Go back and read our blog all about it for a refresher, and use this template to create a hero’s journey of your own: 

Act I

• Step 1: Ordinary World
  • Establish your hero and what their everyday life is like. 
• Step 2: Call to Adventure
  • Have your hero encounter an event, problem, or person that forces them outside of their comfort zone/everyday life. 
• Step 3: Refusal of the Call
  • Make your hero reluctant to leave behind their everyday life to embark on the adventure.
• Step 4: Meeting the Mentor
  • Have your hero meet with a mentor who will help them face the challenges ahead. 

Act II

• Step 1: Crossing the First Threshold
  • Have your hero officially depart on their journey and fully commit to entering the new world.
• Step 2: Test, Allies, Enemies
  • As your hero enters this new world, have them encounter obstacles, enemies, and allies to help them on their journey. 
• Step 3: Approach to the Inmost Cave
  • Have your hero approach the place where they will encounter their greatest fear or biggest threat/foe. 
• Step 4: Ordeal
  • Have your hero confront whatever it is they were approaching above and overcome it. 
• Step 5: Reward (Seizing the Sword)
  • Provide your hero with a light at the end of the tunnel: some kind of tool, belief, or resource that they need to finish their journey.

Act III

1. Step 1: The Road Back
   1. Take your hero on the journey home—but have them encounter more dangers along the way.
2. Step 2: Resurrection
   1. Make your hero face a final test before getting a happy ending. 
3. Step 3: Return with the Elixir
   1. Finally, have your hero return home, changed in some way and with some kind of prize—either an insight or physical object.

The Hero’s Journey as a structure provides a strong framework for character arcs and conflict resolution. It’s a great outlining technique to use for epic stories that span a lot of time. 

The Snowflake Method

Created by novelist Randy Ingermanson, the Snowflake Method involves starting with a brief story summary and then building on it, sort of like how snowflakes start small and build up on the ground. It is markedly different from other outline styles in that it’s as much a map for writing a book as it is for creating an outline. In the Snowflake Method, you start with a simple one-sentence summary of your story or novel, and then you expand on it, adding details in each successive round until you have an intricately detailed beat-by-beat plan for your characters, their myriad of interlocking conflicts, and the core are of the story. 

The Snowflake Method definitely isn’t for every writer, but it might help crack the code of writing a great novel if it works for you. Here’s how you can get started: 

The Five Steps of the Snowflake Method: 

1. One-Sentence Summary — Choose a central premise and distill it into a single sentence that outlines the main conflict or driving force behind the story. This sentence will serve as the foundation for your entire novel.
   1. Example: Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, is persuaded by the wizard Gandalf to join a quest to reclaim a dragon’s hoard of treasure. 
2. Expanded Summary — Take the one-sentence summary and expand it into a paragraph that explains the key elements of the story, including the core conflict, the protagonist’s journey, and the beginning, middle, and end of the narrative.
   1. Example: Set in Middle Earth, homebody hobbit Bilbo Baggins is visited by his old friend, the wizard Gandalf, who persuades him to join on a journey with thirteen dwarves to reclaim a dragon’s hoard of treasure and return the dwarf king Thorin to his rightful throne on the Lonely Mountain. In the course of this adventure, Bilbo faces many challenges, including trolls, goblins, Wargs, and a curious creature named Gollum from who he steals a mysterious and powerful ring. Bilbo’s adventure ultimately brings him to the Lonely Mountain, where a dragon lies sleeping underneath a pile of gold and jewels. But successfully stealing back the jewel that will give Thorin his power back awakens the dragon and has dire consequences, leading to a battle that could destroy the dwarves once and for all. 
3. Character Summaries — Begin creating brief profiles of the major characters in your story. Identify their core characteristics, roles, and how they relate to the main conflict. Keep these concise, focusing on what motivates each character and how they will help move the plot forward.
   1. Example: Bilbo Baggins
      1. Core Traits: Adventurous, fastidious, humble, kind
      2. Role: The protagonist of the novel, he starts off as a cautious homebody with a streak of adventurousness that leads him on a heroic journey.
      3. Conflict: Struggles to overcome his own cowardice and self-doubt and become the hero of his own story.
      4. Motivation: Genuinely wants to help the dwarves and go on an adventure.
      5. Arc: From slightly cowardly hobbit to bold and adventurous hero.
4. Full Character Profiles — Expand each character into a detailed profile. Include backstory, personality traits, relationships, and how they evolve throughout the novel.
   1. Backstory: Bilbo, a hobbit from Hobbiton, has lived in Bag End all his life. He enjoys puffing on a pipe and is familiar with the wizard Gandalf. He is a typical hobbit with an appreciation for a comfortable lifestyle and lots of delicious food. He is well thought of in his community, but is a bachelor and a bit of a loner. On his mother’s side, he has a streak of adventurous spirit that Gandalf plays into. 
   2. Personality: Bilbo is fond of the comforts of his home and loves good, simple food in abundance. He is humble, kind, and generous, but can also be fearful, grumpy, and forgetful. 
   3. Relationships: Bilbo starts the novel off only knowing Gandalf, who he considers a dear friend. He is initially put off by the loud, rambunctious dwarves, but ultimately befriends them. He becomes particularly close with Balin, an older dwarf, and Thorin, the king of the dwarves who he also has the most contentious relationship with. Ultimately, Bilbo values his friendship with all of the company.
   4. Arc: He starts off as a hapless adventurer concerned with cleanliness and food, but grows into a ingenious burglar willing to do anything to help his friends. 
5. Multi-Page Synopsis — Using the expanded plot structure and character profiles, outline the major scenes, key plot points, and character arcs. Break the story into its core parts (beginning, middle, and end) and flesh out the narrative.
   1. Example: Refer back to the synopsis provided in the examples for the Three-Act Structure; this is essentially what you would write here. The Three-Act Structure template can also be done as a part of the overall Snowflake Method, if you wish.

The Snowflake Method focuses on building complexity and gradually ensuring all elements work together coherently. It’s a great method to use if you have a concept in mind but aren’t sure where to take it. 

The Plot Pyramid

You probably saw this plot structure outlined in chalk on your English teacher’s blackboard, if you’re as old as I am. Also known as Freytag’s Pyramid, as it was developed by novelist Gustav Freytag, this simple, five-stage structure helps ensure a strong narrative arc. You’ll recognize some of the language used in other structures here as well. It’s a foundational structure type which can be used for all kinds of storytelling, from poems to short stories to novels and more.

The Five Stages: 

1. Exposition — We’ve talked about exposition before, at length, but this stage of the story introduces its major elements: setting, characters, tone, themes, etc. Most importantly, the major conflict must appear. 
2. Inciting Incident — An inciting incident launches the story from the expositional stage and into the rising action. 
3. Rising Action — This stage takes the story from conflict to climax, and it reveals more elements of the plot and backstory and introduces and expands upon the characters.
4. Climax — The peak of the story, the conflict must come to a head and the fate of the main character’s must be revealed. 
5. Falling Action — Whatever consequences the climax of the story brought on are resolved and all loose ends in the story must be tied up. 
6. Resolution — The story ends—how it ends is ultimately up to the writer, but ideally it ties in thematically with the rest of the story. 

The benefit of the Plot Pyramid is that it’s less character-focused, and more plot-driven. It’s a good, simple template to follow when you just need to get the major events of a story down on the page without overthinking them too much. 

The Scene and Sequel Method

This method is a great one to get at the minutiae of what makes compelling scenes within larger stories. It helps the writer think of scenes as action units within the story, and each unit must do something that moves the story forward and adds to its drama. Here’s how to use the Scene and Sequel Method: 

1. Craft a scene. Each scene must have three elements: a goal, conflict, and disaster.
   1. Goal: Your main character, but also every other character present, should have a goal—a desire, a want, an aim—in every scene they are in. Sometimes, that goal is the same scene over scene. Sometimes it changes. And the goal can be as big or small as it needs to be: saving a life or making a sandwich. Understanding your characters’ goals, how far they’re willing to go to achieve them, and how they intend to set out to achieve them is what will make for a compelling scene and get you through each of the following elements. 
   2. Conflict: Each scene must work hard to prevent your character from getting what they want. Drama is created through internal or external obstacles. Your character must actively try to overcome any obstacles in their way, these obstacles must be relatively to extremely difficult to overcome, and the best obstacles should play on your character’s weaknesses and flaws.
      1. For example, let’s say your character’s goal in a scene is to make a sandwich so they can eat, because they’re hungry. Now let’s put an obstacle between them and doing that: there’s no edible food in the kitchen. Thus, they have to go out to get food. But then they can’t find their keys. So they have to search for their keys and in doing so, they trip and break their nose. You can see here how a desire as simple as making a sandwich descends into the chaos of an injury. 
   3. Disaster: You create drama by doing mean things to your characters—putting them through rough situations that they’re supposed to overcome. In other structures, you can think of this as the rising action. But this is important to add in at an individual scene level as well.
      1. Throwing back to our previous example, a broken nose may seem like disaster enough. But let’s take it a step further. Your character is able to patch up their nose and go to the ER. But because they haven’t eaten and they’ve lost blood, their blood pressure drops, and they pass out. This also counts as a disaster and it could lead to any number of things in a following scene: they fall in love with the doctor or nurse taking care of them, they miss an important appointment because they’re at the hospital, they reunite with an estranged family member because someone needs to be with them when they’re discharged. By creating disaster, you create story. 
2. Craft a sequel. Countering a scene, an action unit, with a sequel, a reaction unit, will help create a complex character and journey, and can lead to a new goal. After all, there must be recovery from a disaster.
   1. Reaction: The character reacts to their previous disaster. How they react determines what they do next. 
   2. Dilemma: Because of the disaster, and perhaps even because of their initial reaction, the character now faces a problem. A great dilemma for a character will mean there are no good options for the character, only bad and worse ones.
      1. Your character’s dilemma is whether or not to call their estranged sister to pick them up from the hospital, or to risk a heftier hospital bill by spending the night. Neither option sounds very good. 
   3. Decision: Finally, the character makes a decision, ending the dilemma and marking the return to an active mode of being from a reactive mode of being. The character now has a new goal to explore in a new scene.
      1. Your character decides to call their sister. In the following scene, we get the goal-conflict-disaster sequence of this choice. 

This method of outlining really focuses on the smaller moments. It helps maintain tension and pacing by balancing the goals and outcomes of the characters in your story. It’s a particularly great method to use for something like a TV show. 

Adapting Outlines for Different Story Formats

Different kinds of stories require different kinds of outlines. Longer form work will need more in-depth, detailed outlining in order to ensure all the plot threads are connected, the characters have transformative arcs, and the storytelling remains cohesive. Shorter work on the other hand may just utilize a brief outline stating the purpose of the story to ensure it doesn’t get off track. Let’s consider what kinds of outlines might benefit what kinds of storytelling: 

Novels — Longer form works tend to require more detailed outlines that can really develop their complex narratives. The Hero’s Journey template is always a great place to start for a novel outline, but structures like Save the Cat, the Three-Act, or the Hero’s Journey may be the best way to go here. 

Short Stories — While these tend to be less complex than novels, in-depth outlines can still be a huge help with drafting short stories. The Three-Act Structure could help provide a framework to follow and beats to hit, or you could go for the Plot Pyramid to ensure you have all the major elements needed for an engaging work.

Flash Fiction — Not all flash fiction pieces will require an outline, but a condensed framework to follow, maybe a sentence each for the beginning, middle, and end could help get the words on the page. 

Poetry — Not all poems require an outline, and not all poets use them. But for structured poems like a sonnet or villanelle, they can be really useful to help you hit the formula requirements while still telling a story. 

Movies — For American Hollywood blockbusters and other films, the Save the Cat structure is the perfect outlining tool. You can use whichever outlining template you like, though, just remember that a movie needs a detailed, complex outline that considers its visual medium. 

TV Shows — TV shows tend to cover even more breadth than novels do, so they may require an extreme level of outlining. Generally speaking, however, each TV episode is first approached with a short two to three sentence paragraph covering the general gist of the episode. That is then taken and spread out into a beat sheet, which covers the general beats that should occur throughout the episode. This serves as the structure for the plot of the episode and ensures you’re creating compelling and cohesive storylines. Finally, you would take this into a step outline, which expands on the beats by fleshing them out into a paragraph or so for each scene that you imagine taking place in the episode. This is then taken a step further and fleshed out into a script. 

Essays — Every good essay starts with a good outline. When it comes to writing them for school projects, it’s good to stay formulaic. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel with the structure since your argument should be unique. Every sentence of your essay should be dedicated to proving your argument. An essay outline might look like: 

• Introduction
  • Thesis Statement
• Body Paragraph 1
  • Topic sentence relating to thesis statement
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
• Body Paragraph 2
  • Topic sentence relating to thesis statement
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
• Body Paragraph 3
  • Topic sentence relating to thesis statement
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
  • Supporting evidence
• Conclusion
  • Thesis restatement
  • Call to Action

Blogs — Similar to essays, online blogs are all about making an argument or relaying information. Think about this blog. How do you think I created the outline for it? Well, each blog generally starts with an introductory paragraph that lays out the “thesis” of that blog. In this case, it’s that outlining is crucial for storytelling. With blog writing, you can be less formal than a traditional essay but the general idea remains the same. Figure out what’s needed to prove your argument in your blog and then add as needed to provide additional resources and information for your argument. Sometimes, the best place to start is with ideas for the headlines of each blog section as such: 

• Ways to Outline a Story
  • Introduction + purpose of blog 
• The Importance of Outlining
  • Benefits, why it’s crucial
• Forms of Outlines
  • Cover different kinds of outlines
• Adapting Outlines for Different Story Formats
  • Discuss different mediums
• Exercise
  • Help readers practice outlining structures for their own writing. 
• Conclusion
  • Recap the importance of finding the right outlining method for your story
  • Encourage readers
  • CTA  

Exercise

On a blank piece of paper, poster board, or notecard, create an outline for a story using one of the structures/templates shared above. Try out different ones for different kinds of stories and see what works best for you.

Outline Away!

All writers work differently, but finding the right outlining technique for you to write the best story you can is an important part of the writing process. Whether you’re the kind of writer who starts with a vague idea and forms that into your own sculpture of work, or the kind of writer who has a very specific image in mind from the get go, outlines can be used to give your story structure, form, balance, and life. 

Try out some of the outlines outlined in this blog to find out what works best for you!