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You are here: Home / 30 DAYS OF WRITING ADVICE / Day 24 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Quick Tips for your Fiction Outline

Day 24 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Quick Tips for your Fiction Outline

April 24, 2019 7 Comments

DAY 24

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

TIPS FOR YOUR FICTION OUTLINE

I don’t know about you, but when I learned to outline, the lesson included Roman numerals, capital and lowercase letters, and lots of indenting. It took me a long time to think of a fiction outline as something else. For me, it’s a list of what happens in the story and also, why. At first it’s pretty vague and then as I get going it can become more detailed. Right now I have an outline for my next novel that’s detailed at the beginning and pretty skimpy at the end. The document will evolve as my story does, as my thoughts do.

Two important things to remember when you’re outlining you WIP:

  1. It’s a guide, not a contract. Change up your story? Go in and revise your outline so it continues to be helpful. The best outline may give you security so that your imagination has room to play. If you want the outline to lock you in, still pay attention to your instincts as you write.
  2. Think about a cause-effect relationship between your outline points. This eliminates the dreaded “and then and then and then” that befalls many outlines. The first thing on your outline MUST lead to the second. You should see and feel this trajectory. (No this doesn’t cover multiple POV novels necessarily, but this is a just a blog post, you can extrapolate).

How do you feel about outlines? I’m using one for my fifth book because it has four POV and otherwise I think I’d go right off a literary cliff!

Would love some suggestions for the last few day of #30Days. My well is dry (and I’m doing all this on deadline).

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

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Filed Under: 30 DAYS OF WRITING ADVICE, Uncategorized

Previous Post: « Day 23 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Finding Comps for Your Novel
Next Post: Day 25 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – 5 Tips For Fabulous Fiction First Lines and Paragraphs »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Karen Scott says

    April 24, 2019 at 7:08 am

    How about:

    * To prologue or not to prologue
    * Choosing a pen name (or why one shouldn’t)
    * Questions to ask (or instructions for) beta readers

    I’m loving all the advice!

    Reply
    • Amy Sue Nathan says

      April 24, 2019 at 8:22 pm

      Great ideas! I wrote a beta readers article, Karen. It’s not online but if you want it just email me and I’ll send you a pdf. amysuenathan@gmail.com

      Reply
  2. Mayer Baker says

    April 24, 2019 at 9:16 am

    Tips for making those first opening sentences (and 1st paragraph) captivating? Dialogue better than action? Any landmines to avoid?

    Reply
    • Amy Sue Nathan says

      April 24, 2019 at 8:17 pm

      I love this idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it!

      Reply
  3. Gillian Andrews says

    April 24, 2019 at 10:41 am

    Suggest something about secondary characters, and perhaps subplots. What do they add to the story? Maybe even something about choosing setting and how it impacts on the story. I’ve also read about how learning how actors play a scene can be helpful when building characters. Any thoughts on that? There you go. Four ideas.

    Reply
    • Amy Sue Nathan says

      April 24, 2019 at 8:17 pm

      You’re an idea machine!!

      Reply
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