Whether writing a script, a novel or a school paper, organization is the name of the game. An unorganized novel or paper sounds sloppy, confusing and rushed. Writing without a plan is like throwing paint at a wall while blindfolded and expecting a masterpiece to come out of it (and no, you don’t count as an abstract artist). One way to write yourself out of the labyrinth is to make an outline.
Now, before you get too excited, outlines can be much more flexible than your fourth grade teacher told you, especially for creative writing. Here’s how to use them to your advantage:
1. What is an outline?
Outlines are like road maps. They’re used to plot out all of the major points so that you’re not writing by the seat of your pants. For maybe .01% of the population, they’re not necessary. These people can write an interesting, well organized and coherent paper or story without planning anything the first time through. These people are not you or me. Some people make their outlines much more structured than others. Personally, I’m more of a lister, in that I make a short, basic list of what I want to cover and add in detail as I go.
2. How do I format an outline?
There are two ways to think of an outline. First, there’s the very rigid, academic outline. This is the one you learned in school, with roman numerals followed by letters, followed by lowercase roman numerals and so on. They look a bit like this:
How to Write an Outline
I. Introduction
a. Organization is key.
i. Unorganized papers are hard to read.
ii. They sound sloppy and confused.
iii. Paint metaphor.
b. But outlines are scary and hard!
i. They’re actually quite simple.
ii. Outlines can be very useful for creative writing as well as non fiction papers.
II. What is an outline?
And so on. Normally, each point and sub-point is indented a little further than the one above it, but WordPress doesn’t support that kind of formatting. There are a few things you should notice here. First, you start with a title at the top, so that you (or the reader) knows what the outline is about. The first section is marked with a roman numeral one (I) all the way on the left hand side. The first sub-point is a capital letter A. The next sub-point is a capital B, and so on until you run out of letters (in which case you start using double letters, like AA, BB, etc.) Underneath each sub point are the supporting details, listed with lowercase roman numerals. If you have a sub-point for your supporting details, it is marked with a lowercase letter. The nice thing about Microsoft Word is that has options (in the bulletpoint drop down menu) that will do this formatting for you, so you don’t have to think about it.
Unfortunately, Word isn’t going to write your outline for you, so there are still a couple of things you need to keep in mind. If you are going to include sub-points (which you should, if your paper is well-supported), you cannot put only one. If you have an A, you need a B. If you have an i, you need an ii. You should also know when to break things up. Generally, outlines for papers are formatted so that each uppercase roman numeral (or each uppercase letter, if it’s a longer paper) is a paragraph. Each paragraph should have a few sub-points. If you only have one or two, you should consider merging it with another point. If you have ten, you need to break it up into two or three paragraphs.
For less formal outlines, like the kind used to plot out a story, I usually forgo letters and numbers altogether and simply use bullet points. These are the kinds of outlines discussed below.
3. What can I use outlines for?
Most people think that outlines are just used for school research projects, but they have great applications outside of the classroom. Outlines are fantastic for keeping track of plots while writing creatively. Making a plot outline gives you an orderly, chronological road map to follow while writing. If you plot out the story ahead of time and make an outline, you should never find yourself written into a corner. With a plot outline you always know where you’re going with the story, and it forces you to work out the kinks in your plot beforehand, which helps decrease frustration and writer’s block.
Other less obvious use is for characters. Having one document with every character in the story is very, very helpful as a reference. Each character is listed, and each sub-point is a trait, a piece of background, or something else pertinent to the character. Having all of your characters and their traits, background, relationships, goals and more in one place is unbelievably helpful.
There are almost infinite applications for outlines in school, writing, and life in general. They are a fantastic organizational tool that bring cohesion and clarity to novels, papers, scripts and more. Knowing how to make one is an essential skill that any budding writer should learn. Now, go forth and write!
Wordsmiths 