- Invitation Status
- Looking for partners
- Posting Speed
- One post per day
- 1-3 posts per week
- One post per week
- Writing Levels
- Intermediate
- Adept
- Advanced
- Preferred Character Gender
- No Preferences
- Genres
- Urban Fantasy, High Fantasy, Epic Quest, Sci-Fi, Time Travel and World Hopping, Steampunk, Action/Adventure, Modern Drama, Mystery, Slice of Life, Romance, and many more.
When you're pitching your story, an outline is indispensable. Your editor or beta will often require it. In fact, I often want to see the outline before I even agree to edit something; often if it's not ready for the copy-editing stage, it will show in the outline.
So what is an outline?
It's a synopsis of your story, start-to-finish. Its something an editor, agent, friend, or anyone else can read quickly which gives them the gist of how the story unfolds.
An outline:
Here are some examples of things that should be cut or shortened in an outline.
1:
2:
3:
4:
Here is an example of an outline:
So what is an outline?
It's a synopsis of your story, start-to-finish. Its something an editor, agent, friend, or anyone else can read quickly which gives them the gist of how the story unfolds.
An outline:
- Is written in short form; I recommend bullet points and summary statements
- Includes all events which move the main (A) plot
- Covers the whole story from intro to conclusion
- Contains all the 'need-to-know' info for understanding the context of the story
- Include B or C plots (sub-plots)
- Include dialogue
- Include character development
- Include detailed context
- Include Author's Notes
- The Title
- Chapter titles
- Markers to show where a chapter ends/begins
- Character names
Here are some examples of things that should be cut or shortened in an outline.
1:
- X and Y have a fight in which X says Y is just a "two-faced liar" which brings up all of Y's trauma from before, causing her to run out into the street where she meets Z, who comforts her and lets her sleep at his place.
- "X and Y fight, causing Y to storm out and end up crashing at Z's place."
2:
- X becomes suspicious that Y is the thief and decides to follow them
- X begins surveillance on Y
- Y finds a hidden camera and confronts X
- X accuses Y of being the thief
- Y proves indisputably that they are not
- X admits defeat and decides to return to the scene of the crime to look for new clues
- X becomes suspiscous that Y is the thief and decides to follow them
- X begins surveillance on Y and discovers that Y and Z are secretly dating
- Y finds a hidden camera and confronts X
- During the confrontation, X notices Y has a stolen item that they could not possibly have stolen
- X concedes that Y is not the thief, but considers that Z might have stolen the thing for them
3:
- X finds out that Y has a crush on them
- X finds out that Y has a crush on them, and the info distracts them from noticing Z's second robbery in progress
- X finds out that Z has a crush on them, and realizing their own feelings causes them to excuse Z as a suspect
- X finds out that Y has a crush on them, and ditches surveillance on Z to meet with them
4:
- X decides they need to try to be less paranoid
- X decides they need to be less paranoid, and overlooks Z's suspicious action
Here is an example of an outline:
- It's a fantasy universe with monsters etc
- XY and A are all humans
- X and Y are monster hunters
- Z is a monster
- X happens, causing X to meet Y and team up
- X and Y are attacked by Z but defeat them, much carnage from the fight.
- X and Y decide to find out more about Z and go to LOCATION for info
- LOCATION has been destroyed by Z, but A shows up and says they can help, joins the team
- XYA team prepares to go after Z, but Z only seems more undefeatable the more they learn
- A is kidnapped by Z's team, tortured into giving up what XYA team knows
- X and Y rescue A
- Info A picked up while captured reveals possible weakness
- a chance incident leads to XYA team finding out about a time Z will be vulnerable
- XYA team attacks Z
- Z has secret advantage, still gets defeated but Y dies in the battle
- Day saved, bittersweet tone, Funeral scene
- Fin.
Last edited: