Hey! I was wondering whether or not you have your own foolproof method for outlining your stories/novels? (I have a mild problem where I know most of what needs to happen in the story, but I have difficulty finding a comfortable format for getting everything down.)
There are lots of different formats people can use to outline and organize ideas, and everyone has different things that work for them. Some people are super organized and strict, others are disorganized. I am of the opinion that even if you’re naturally scatter-brained and disorganized (I certainly am), it’s good to try to be as organized as possible. The more developed a story becomes, the more moving parts, simultaneous arcs, and little details there are that can be lost if they’re not put in a place where you can find them. I’m always so mad at myself when I come up with an idea and forget to write it down, because later on I don’t remember all the details. More than anything, I think the best concept to help plan is to always have a place for everything and be able to find it.
There are different software companies have made to try to help with this. One of the most common among many Indie writers (and maybe traditionally-published writers - I just don’t interact with them so I don’t know) is Scrivener. Basically, it’s a virtual notebook. There are different subsections, such as writing, character, setting, plot, magic, ideas, and you can make individual pages under those subsections for different things. For example, when I was using it, I had a “characters” section, that was divided into different subsections of “Villains,” “Protagonist crew” and “others.” Then I made individual character pages for each character. I also made individual pages for each city, country, or place, and on those pages elaborated upon things like languages, cultures, food, etc. It helps a lot of people stay organized. Here’s where you can purchase it:
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview
I actually stopped using Scrivener because of a bad experience I had where it became incompatible with my computer and deleted everything, so take that as you will :))
Now, what I do is I actually have multiple google docs. I use google docs because I collaborate a lot with my sister and google docs makes collaboration super easy. For each novel, I usually have 5-6 docs: an actual writing doc, an idea scribble doc, an organized idea doc, an outlining doc, a setting doc, and sometimes more depending on my needs. In the scribble doc, I just write down ideas as I’m creating them. That way even if I haven’t figured out how the idea fits into my story, I still have it down somewhere and can find it later on. The organized plans is where I take the ideas from the scribble doc and write them down in a more organized fashion. Usually I’ll have headlines in this doc underneath which I put relevant ideas. For example, I may have relationship headers, character headers, history headers, mythology headers, etc. This helps me keep my ideas organized when I’m brainstorming.
When I’m outlining, I tend to follow this pattern: I make a list of different, progressing plot lines that will be going on throughout the story, and then I figure out individual scenes belonging to this arc and how the arc progresses. Once I have multiple lines plotted out and detailed, I intersperse these different lines to create a strong outline with intertwining and progressing arcs.
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