by Donald Maass
Whatever you do, whether you are outlining before or after completing your novel, use this as an opportunity to play. A novel is never done, exactly, and this is a fine opportunity to find new ways to build your novel on a breakout scale.
Steps to Creating an Outline
The number in parenthesis after each step tells you the number of paragraphs that each step will yield. If you are able to follow the steps below exactly, you will wind up with fifty paragraphs. If you then average four paragraphs per page, at the end of this process you will have the rough draft of a twelve-and-a-half page outline. Along the way you may also have found some new material for your novel itself.
1. Plot fundamentals.
Write down the following:
1. Where is your novel set, who is your main character, and what is his main problem, conflict, or goal? (1)
2. What does your protagonist most want, and why? (1)
3. What is your protagonist's second plot layer? (1)
4. What is your protagonist's third plot layer? (1)
5. What is the first subplot? (1)
6. What is the second subplot? (1)
7. Who is the most important secondary or supporting character, what is her main problem, conflict, or goal, and what does she most want? (1)
8. Who is the novel's antagonist, what is his main problem, conflict, or goal, and what does he most want? (1)
2. The middle.
Write down the following:
9. What are the five biggest steps toward the solution of your protagonist's main problem? Another way to ask that is: What are the five turning points or events that you positively cannot leave out? (Include your story's climax.) (5)
10. What are the five most important steps toward, or away from, what your protagonist most wants? (5)
11. What are the three most important steps (each) toward, or away from, the resolution of the second and third plot layers? (6)
12. What are the three most important steps (each) toward, or away from, the resolution of your first and second subplots? (6)
13. What are the three most important steps toward, or away from, the resolution of each main problem facing your foremost secondary character and your antagonist? (6)
3. Highlights.
Write down the following:
14. Two moments of strong inner conflict. (2)
15. Three larger-than-life actions. (3)
16. Five places to heighten turning points or high moments.
17. Two moments frozen in time. (2)
18. Two measures of change. (2)
19. The psychology of place with respect to the setting of the novel's climax. (1)
20. Three dialogue snippets. (3)
21. A paragraph of resolution. (1)
4. Putting it together.
Elaborate in a paragraph what you wrote down in each of the steps above.