Angelo caduto @justbeluv - Tumblr Blog

🧩 How to Outline Without Feeling Like You’re Dying

(a non-suffering writer’s guide to structure, sanity, and staying mildly hydrated)

Hey besties. Let’s talk outlines. Specifically: how to do them without crawling into the floorboards and screaming like a Victorian ghost.

If just hearing the word “outline” sends your brain into chaos-mode, welcome. You’re not broken, you’re just a writer whose process has been hijacked by Very Serious Advice™ that doesn’t fit you. You don’t need to build a military-grade beat sheet. You don’t need a sixteen-tab spreadsheet. You don’t need to suffer to be legitimate. You just need a structure that feels like it’s helping you, not haunting you.

So. Here’s how to outline your book without losing your soul (or all your serotonin).

—

🍓 1. Stop thinking of it as “outlining.” That word is cursed. Try “story sketch.” “Narrative roadmap.” “Planning soup.” Whatever gets your brain to chill out. The goal here is to understand your story, not architect it to death.

Outlining isn’t predicting everything. It’s just building a scaffold so your plot doesn't fall over mid-draft.

—

🧠 2. Find your plot skeleton. There are lots of plot structures floating around: 3-Act. Save the Cat. Hero’s Journey. Take what helps, ignore the rest.

If all else fails, try this dirt-simple one I use when my brain is mush:

Act I: What’s the problem?

Act II: Why can’t we fix it?

Act III: What finally makes us change?

Ending: What does that change cost?

You don’t need to fill in every detail. You just need to know what’s driving your character, what’s blocking them, and what choices will change them.

—

🛒 3. Make a “scene bucket list.” Before you start plotting in order, write down a list of scenes you know you want: key vibes, emotional beats, dramatic reveals, whatever.

These are your anchors. Even if you don’t know where they go yet, they’re proof your story already exists, it just needs connecting tissue.

Bonus: when you inevitably get stuck later, one of these might be the scene that pulls you back in.

—

🧩 4. Start with 5 key scenes. That’s it. Here’s a minimalist approach that won’t kill your momentum:

Opening (what sucks about their world?)

Catalyst (what throws them off course?)

Midpoint (what makes them confront themselves?)

Climax (what breaks or remakes them?)

Ending (what’s changed?)

Plot the spaces between those after you’ve nailed these. Think of it like nailing down corners of a poster before smoothing the rest.

You’re not “doing it wrong” if you start messy. A messy start is a start.

—

🔧 5. Use the outline to ask questions, not just answer them. Every section of your outline should provoke a question that the scene must answer.

Instead of: — “Chapter 5: Sarah finds a journal.”

Try: — “Chapter 5: What truth does Sarah find that complicates her next move?”

This makes your story active, not just a list of stuff that happens. Outlines aren’t just there to record, they’re tools for curiosity.

—

🪤 6. Beware of the Perfectionist Trap™. You will not get the entire plot perfect before you write. Don’t stall your momentum waiting for a divine lightning bolt of Clarity. You get clarity by writing.

Think of your outline as a map drawn in pencil, not ink. It’s allowed to evolve. It should evolve.

You’re not building a museum exhibit. You’re making a prototype.

—

🧼 7. Clean up after you start drafting. Here’s the secret: the first draft will teach you what the story’s actually about. You can go back and revise the outline to fit that. It’s not wasted work, it’s evolving scaffolding.

You don’t have to build the house before you live in it. You can live in the mess while you figure out where the kitchen goes.

—

🛟 8. If you’re a discovery writer, hybrid it. A lot of “pantsers” aren’t anti-outline, they’re just anti-stiff-outline. That’s fair.

Try using “signposts,” not full scenes:

Here’s a secret someone’s hiding.

Here’s the emotional breakdown scene.

Here’s a betrayal. Maybe not sure by who yet.

Let the plot breathe. Let the characters argue with your outline. That tension is where the fun happens.

—

🪴 TL;DR but emotionally: You don’t need a flawless outline to write a good book. You just need a loose net of ideas, a couple of emotional anchors, and the willingness to pivot when your story teaches you something new.

Outlines should support you, not suffocate you.

Let yourself try. Let it be imperfect. That’s where the good stuff lives.

Go forth and outline like a gently chaotic legend 🧃

— written with snacks in hand by Rin T. @ thewriteadviceforwriters 🍓🧠✍️

Sometimes the problem isn’t your plot. It’s your first 5 pages. Fix it here → 🖤 Free eBook: 5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making:

✦ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages ✦If you're unsure whether your opening is ✨doing enough✨ to hook re

skeletomez

completelylegal

Things I’ve noticed are essential in plotting and would probably have saved me a lot of time if I had considered it earlier

The START of your story - how fucked up flawed is your premise/character at the start? what do they have to change? why are they HERE?

The END of your story - How do you want your main character/theme/universe to change after your story? Does it get better or worse? THIS SETS UP THE TONE DRASTICALLY.

What you want to happen IN BETWEEN - the MEAT of it. What made you start writing this WIP in the first place. Don't be ashamed to indulge, it's where the BRAIN JUICE comes from. You want a deep dive into worldbuilding and complex systems? Then your start and end should be rooted in some fundamental, unique rule of your universe (what made you obsess over it?). Want to write unabashed ship content? Make sure your start and end are so compelling you'll never run out of smut scenarios to shove in between scenes (what relationship dynamics made you ship it in the first place?).

The ANTE - the GRAVITY of your story. How high are the stakes? Writing a blurb or interaction? start with a small day-in-the-life so you can focus on shorter timelines and hourly minutiae that can easily get overlooked in more complicated epics. Or you can go ham on it and plot out your whole universe's timeline from conception to demise. Remember: the larger the scale, the less attached your story may get. How quickly time flies in your story typically correlates with the ante (not a hard rule, ofc, but most epics span years of time within a few pages, while a romance novel usually charts out the events of a few months over a whole manuscript.)

Everything else follows….?

nondelphic

"just write a little every day" ok but what if i write nothing for 3 weeks and then suddenly type like i’m being hunted by god

vexheart

titsay

fframbuaz-deactivated20250820

titsay

bebx

my taste in fictional men is just the unstable, traumatized and dangerous ones who radiate strong "I'm not a bad dog. I'm a wounded and terrified dog who bites to survive" vibes honestly

out-of-jams

REVERSE TROPE WRITING PROMPTS

Too many beds

Accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss

Really nice guy who hates only you

Academic rivals except it’s two teachers who compete to have the best class

Divorce of convenience

Too much communication

True hate’s kiss (only kissing your enemy can break a curse)

Dating your enemy’s sibling

Lovers to enemies

Hate at first sight

Love triangle where the two love interests get together instead

Fake amnesia

Soulmates who are fated to kill each other

Strangers to enemies

Instead of fake dating, everyone is convinced that you aren’t actually dating

Too hot to cuddle

Love interest CEO is a himbo/bimbo who runs their company into the ground

Nursing home au

bitesizedpoetry

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

literaryvein-prompts

Writing Prompt: Write about where you want to be.

handeaux

Cincinnati Women Who Smoked Endured Disdain, Harassment And Even Divorce

Back in the 1970s, with the tagline “You’ve come a long way, baby,” the Virginia Slims cigarette brand published a series of humorous advertisements linking a woman’s right to smoke with women’s liberation in general. A typical ad portrayed a sepia-toned damsel sneaking a smoke in the basement, with the caption:

“In 1915, Mrs. Cynthia Robinson was caught smoking in the cellar behind the preserves. Although she was 34, her husband sent her straight to her room.”

Boffo yucks, no? But did those advertisements really reflect reality? In Cincinnati, at least, that was very much the way things were. Queen City women who smoked faced all sorts of harassment. Lighting up a cigarette was not only grounds for divorce, but evidence that a woman hankered for the louche life of a prostitute.

The Cincinnati Enquirer [13 November 1900] related the sad tale of Arthur Graham and his newlywed wife, Viola:

“Arthur Graham, a young shoemaker who is employed in a big factory on West Fourth street, between Main and Sycamore streets, believed that he was the happiest fellow on earth, and that his wife was the soul of honor, until she began to spend his wages for cigarettes. That set him to thinking, and he was not at all surprised when she left him. He heard that she had entered a house on Longworth street, and yesterday afternoon he called Patrol 1 and had her removed from the place to Central Station, where the mismatched couple told their troubles to Lieutenant Geist. She was released on her promise to return home.”

It appears that the Grahams patched things up despite her sojourn on Longworth Street. Although that infamous avenue was the very heart of Cincinnati’s red-light district, it might be uncharitable to imagine Viola engaging in naughty behavior. Maybe she sought employment in a brothel as a maid or a cook. Maybe. In any event, the couple remained together until Arthur died in 1966. Perhaps they learned to share an ash tray.

Not so George Osgood of 256 Butler Street. He was granted a divorce in 1902 from Mary “Millie” Osgood. George told the judge that Millie started on a “faithless career” by smoking cigarettes and had even adopted an alias as “Kate Keller,” a typical practice by prostitutes at the time.

In 1914, truck driver William Middaugh of West Fourth Street filed for divorce from his wife, Cassie, because she smoked cigarettes in front of company. Apparently, sneaking a smoke behind the preserves was okay by him.

The situation was somewhat more complicated when Charles W. Mangan’s wife filed for divorce in 1917. Mangan, employed by the Central Railway and Hotel Distributing Company on Reading Road, responded that Nettie Mangan not only smoked, but drank and threw furniture at him.

Similarly, John H. Gardner of 1036 Findlay Street had more than tobacco on his mind when he filed for divorce in 1922. His wife, Nellie, he alleged, not only smoked cigarettes, but spent his money at the racetrack and absconded to Phoenix with another man.

When she lit up a smoke on their 1925 honeymoon, Mabel Collinsworth Kopp “shattered the ideals” of her groom, Melville Kopp. Asserting that she also read “questionable” magazines, Melville, who made his living playing the organ at movie theaters, filed for divorce. Mabel responded that Melville had only married her to escape the affections of another young lady and that Melville’s parents never liked her. Melville told the court that his mother objected to Mabel’s smoking.

As early as 1885, cigarette smoking raised serious questions about a woman’s morals. The Cincinnati Post [3 November 1885] interviewed a dealer in second-hand books at his stall on Fifth Street near Mound. That neighborhood included several elementary schools and the reporter, noticing that the book monger offered several brands of cigarettes for sale, assumed that his customers were school children. Not so. It was women who bought the smokes. The dealer told the Post:

“I believe there are more women than men who smoke in this part of town – and drink – if you could see as much of it as I do. I believe there are five women to one man in this locality who drink.”

This led the Post reporter, it appears, to reconsider his entire opinion of the fairer sex.

“The old gentleman placed the smoking and drinking by women in juxtaposition and the Post realized that the woman who stimulates with a cigarette will soon not object to a fluid stimulant.”

That is just the opinion, nearly 35 years later, expressed by Rabbi David Philipson of Rockdale Temple, who in a 1919 sermon, excoriated “slaves to fashion” who smoke, drink, “emulate chorus girls” and regard as old fogies those decent folks who try to abide by “laws of decency and reverence.

The rabbi was strongly seconded by famed evangelist William Ashley "Billy" Sunday, who blew into Cincinnati on a 1921 crusade. After blasting a veritable menagerie of modern wickedness, Sunday zeroed in on one particular target: the “damphool woman” who smokes cigarettes. “She’s skating on thin ice,” he thundered as his audience at the First Presbyterian Church shouted “Amen.”

Having none of this was Allene Sumner, author of the “Woman’s Day” column in the Cincinnati Post. When the National Fire Protection Association proclaimed that incendiary hazards had increased astronomically since women took up smoking, Ms. Sumner was roused [9 June 1927] to feminist ardor:

“They say sarcastic things about ‘the natural refinement of women rapidly succumbing to this habit.’ Wonder just how many generations it will be before human minds will function sufficiently rationally to have shed tradition and prejudice and do enough straight thinking to see that there is little or no connection between ‘a woman’s refinement’ and whether she smokes or not, any more than whether or not she can be refined and eat chocolates or drink coffee?”