Yes, PLEASE, SEND my outline! Here’s a ready-made plot for an 80,000-word novel for you to steal! It has a complete list of scene summaries that you can use to start writing your novel right now, step-by-step! And yes, you can use this outline to write your own novel AND publish it. I won’t mind! In fact, I’ll be thrilled!…
OKAY GUYS LOOK WHAT I JUST FOUND!!!!!!!!!!! I’M LITERALLY CRYING RIGHT NOW YOU HAVE NO IDEA!!!!
For all my creative writing classes they never gave me a good novel outline template I really enjoyed. It was really just, “Fill in you exposition, rising action, climax and falling action.” It was t e d i o u s. I absolutely hated it and my writing has suffered due to it.
I’m definitely one of those people who needs to write everything I’m planning down or I forget and it just seems forced, but since I never liked outlining I never plan anything on paper before novel writing. If you’re like me in any way or even if you’re not, use this template!!! It’s certainly the best one I have ever seen. I’m actually in love with it!!!!!!
It has the normal stuff: resolution, climax, blah, blah, blah but it also has CHARACTER PLANNING. It’s literally set up in a beautiful template for you to use! It has you state the genre, themes, and all that amazing beautiful stuff!!! And, AND you can steal this entire plot if you’re ever feeling uninspired!! SHE”S GIVING YOU AN ENTIRE PLOT!!!!!!!!
And the best part?!?!?!? IT’S FREE!!!! FREEEEEEEE. You can customize it and put in pictures and it doesn’t cost a thing. All you have to do is sign up for a free subscription which is sort of awesome because this lady sends you tips!! That’s right. She even has classes on her page! There’s hundreds of templates and cheat sheets and all this amazing stuff on how to do things like killing off characters to make it painful and NANO prep and I am ranting now.......
Look, to everyone their own but please check out this blog. Even if you’re not looking for an outline template I’m positive you will find something worthwhile!
I’m bored. Have a long-term Doctor Who fic outline template.
Otherwise known as a mouthful. I’m tired. Sue me. But I structured a little outline for myself and thought it might be useful. It's pretty simple, but it's hard to keep long-term story arcs in your head, and it's a bit tedious to figure out your own functioning outline, so here's what I'm using cut down to basics.
I added some stuff to make it less specific, but this was created with a canon-alteration fic in mind, long enough for certain parts to not need to be outlined yet. I guess you could use it for almost anything, hence all the tags, and there's probably a better outline to find somewhere, but I'm bored and have to wait to finish my current project because things are keeping me from writing. So... here.
Each major section can be altered, removed, etc. to adapt to the story. Basically, it's all "if applicable."
Anything in all caps except the sub-eras were supposed to be underlined, and I wanted to center some things, but Tumblr ain’t perfect.
(originally centered) GENERAL
IMPORTANT TERMS
ex.
IMPORTANT ORIGINAL CHARACTERS
ex.
SPECIES & PLANETS
ex.
TIME LOOPS & PARADOXES
ex.
WORLD IDEAS
ex.
UNSTRUCTURED IDEAS/NOTES
ex.
(originally centered) ERA 1
(originally centered) (Brief note.)
(originally centered) SUB ERA IF APPLICABLE
"EPISODES"
Title or brief description
Story outline.
Story outline.
Story outline.
Etc.
Title or brief description
Story outline.
Etc.
"MINISODE" TOPICS
Idea for a shorter conflict. (Maybe outlined.)
Idea for a shorter conflict. (Maybe outlined.)
Etc.
"CHILLISODE" TOPICS
Idea for a short story without conflict. (Maybe outlined.)
Idea for a short story without conflict. (Maybe outlined.)
Free fiction writing template to help you outline your novel (Word, PDF, Scrivener, Google Docs, Open Office)
A few years ago I made the Plot Dot (now free on Amazon!) – my simple 8 step outline for writing novels, with the major dramatic twists most stories need to hit. I always wanted a more in-depth plotting outline and cheatsheet, but there’s so many conflicting story structures out there… this week however, I managed to put together a 24 step chapter outline for commercial fiction.
It’s based on a lot of other things, but I’ve looked at other beatsheets or story planning guides and haven’t found one that actually tells you what to do at each stage in your story… So I hope you like it. I made an hour long video walking you through the steps, I’ll share that down below.
You can also download the Word Template; I managed to get it down to 2 pages (so you can print front and back if you want, and so that I can call it a “one page” plot outline.
If you like this graphic and plotting outline, please share it!
