My 3 Important Reasons For Outlining.
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Your ideas are massively important. Unless your memory is insanely good, you might want to write down your ideas first.
There are folks that can write a book “by the seat of their pants” (aka: pantsers) and there are those, like me, who need to write it all down and have a clear, organized structure to rely on. Also known as “planners”, we like to know what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen and how. That’s why we outline things. In this blog, I’ll explore the importance of outlining your novel and address three (3) reasons why it’s good to do before you start.
Figuring out your characters and how they fit in your story.
Getting clear and impactful “Inciting Incident(s)”.
Knowing the plot twists and pivotal moments.
1. Figuring out your Characters and how they fit.
In my opinion, before writing your story, you should have a deep grasp of your characters and how they would interact/react in your fiction world. And that means writing out a ‘character bible’ that you can refer to as you write. Character bibles are rich in information about your protagonists and antagonists. It contains demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity. What about their background history and their family? It even goes deeper - what are your character’s personality traits, their likes/dislikes, their flaws? What do they desire? What do they fear?
A short snippet of a Character Bible. This one’s for ‘Pedro Martinez’. Find out more in my book!
Why go through such a lengthy process as typing up a character bible, especially if you have multiple personas in your story? The answer is simple: Conflict.
A story can’t all be sunshine and rainbows, right? That wouldn’t be a compelling and interesting story if there weren’t any conflicts, both internally or externally. Having conflicts provides your story with the necessary “hooks” to keep the audience reading. Reader want to read a character flaw, especially that of your main protagonist and witness how that character overcomes their internal and external conflict.
“Make the outline, work for you.”
By having a character bible, you get to write out and plan those conflicts, those “hooks” that readers enjoy. Maybe your character is fearful because of a traumatic childhood but learns to overcome their fears. Perhaps your character is egotistical and they learn to become humble by the end of the story. By planning this out in a character bible, you flush out your characters; you make them believable and relatable. Then, like pieces on a Chess board, you can strategically have them move and interact with each other because you now know how they’ll react in a situation.
2. Powerful and precise “Inciting Incidents”
There is debate about this. Pantser’s seem to have a knack for creating compelling conflicts as they write - something I have trouble doing. But first, what’s an inciting incident?
An inciting incident is a moment in your story where your main character is pushed outside their comfort zone. It’s a conflict - a moment for the character to change directions. It can be big and disastrous (world ending) or something small, like accidentally forgetting to pay for an item and suddenly your character get’s chased by guilt and the police. In either case, with characters describe and written in detail, you can flush out a potential inciting incident that can carry your story to the end.
This can be done if you plan and outline ahead of time. By having a conflict written down, you get a bird’s eye view on where the story could go and how your characters interact within that story. Of course, you can always change the inciting incident as you write but it’s always good to know where you want to go before taking that first step. Give yourself some direction!
No spoilers!
One of many pages of notes describing what ‘inciting incidents’ could happen in my book (sorry for the horrible handwriting).
By having an outline with a clear inciting incident, you can now insert the most interesting and compelling bits of your story: plot twists and pivotal points.
2. Plot twists and pivotal moments.
Every reader enjoys a good plot twist. Conversely, readers hate a bad one, especially if it comes out of nowhere with no hints or it doesn’t make any sense. Usually this is a result of poor outlining and lack of planning or no outlining at all. This is especially true with pivotal points like “aha moments” your character(s) have. Poorly placed, game-changing moments can have a disastrous effect to your story. You can have a great situation where your character gains new insight but if it’s placed suddenly within the story, it could fall flat.
Outlining solves that problem. By putting in the time to outline your ‘Acts’ or chapters, you get clear picture on where the attention-grabbing moments should go. You’ll start to see through the hazy, creative fog where you can fit the “hooks” and create amazing plot twists that’ll shock your reader.
Check out this informative and valuable video from author Jerry Jenkins!
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