As Camp Nano is in about a month, I thought I'd start a Saturday blog series about how to make sure you're ready for it! (For those of you who don't know, Camp Nano is a writing event where writers decide on a writing goal to achieve in July and then work towards it.) The first step to a successful Camp Nano, or to any writing project, is to have an outline. And yes, I know some people can write novels without them but I can't. So if you're like me and need an outline, this post is for you. Today, I thought I would share my three step process to outlining a novel. Step One: Braindump all your novel ideas If you read my post about my writing process, then you know a novel idea usually brews in my head for a while before I write the outline. The first thing I do before outlining a new novel idea is to get all those ideas out of my head and onto the page. For this, I'll pull out my journal and just jot down all the fun ideas, no matter how big or small, onto the page. This can serve as inspiration for the beat sheets and oftentimes leads to me creating fully formed characters before I even use the beat sheet. Step Two: Use the Save the Cat Beat Sheet to Organize Your Ideas If you're unfamiliar with Save the Cat Writes a Novel, you need to buy this book! The author highlights all the beats you need to craft a great novel...and the book will revolutionize your outlines--however, any three act writing structure would work here. I divide up all my ideas into different beats which belong in a three act structure. Usually, I write these out on index cards, as I did when outlining my last novel back in October of 2019. I even blogged about it in case you're curious what the cards looked like! Step Three: Divide the Beats Up into Chapters and Create a Formal Outline After I have all the beats down on index cards, I assign each index card to a chapter. I try to make sure there's about three scenes/beats per chapter so the chapters aren't too long or short, but this is just a rough guideline. Once each beat is assigned a chapter, I pulled up a Google Doc, name it "Draft 1 Outline" and set to work roughly outlining the main points of each chapter. For each chapter, I like to have mapped out any main plot points, any subplot progression, any character development, and the cliffhanger for each chapter which will keep readers reading. Curious how this all looks in action? Watch me outline in this vlog:
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AuthorI'm Angela Anne, a Young Adult contemporary writer committed to helping you achieve your writing goals + giving you writing inspiration. ArchivesCategories
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