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@the-fledgling-artist

Hi there! 😀

Personally, outlining is part in the writing process where I have the most fun. Planning and plotting come pretty natural to me. One thing that I have noticed about outlining, however, is that not all methods work with all books.

For example, I have two WIP right now, one historical fiction and another set in the modern day. The historical fictional one is much more detailed and has taken much longer to create because I am working with both the historical world and the fictional world. The outline for the fictional story is much shorter and I will probably end up making up some of it as I go, just because of what the story is like.

Here’s a quick example of how I do my outlining for my historical fiction story.

• Katherine and the Queen Scene
• Katherine enters the Queen’s apartments and bows (the Queen quickly tells her come closer) and is seated near her on a cushioned chair.
• They have a conversation, and the sense the Queen is trying to feel her out is not at all hidden. She soon rises to the unspoken challenge, (a match of wits and words) and the Queen seems to like that. At one of her answers, the Queen seems to smother a smile.
• (Conversation flow goes like this: Queen asks about the journey, what she thinks of Coventry, the well being of her lady mother and their household, Katherine asks about “young prince Edward” and the King’s health.)
• Her brother John’s marriage is mentioned/brought up. Katherine isn’t sure how much to say or if she should even talk about it at all, but the Queen tells her to “never mind diplomacy and politics, marriage is a woman’s matter—tell me what you think of the affair. Would they be a good match?”
• Katherine then gains a little more confidence and speaks in favor of it..
  The Queen is quiet after this pronouncement. “Well, I suppose we will see if things work out that way.”
• End scene

So, as you see, I am pretty detailed most of the time. It’s not like this all the way through, however…sometimes I write full conversations and other times it’s just the bare bones. In total, I probably have over 70 pages of outlining for this story.

My advice to you would be to figure out how detailed you need to be to be able to draft. For this HF story, I find myself getting writer’s block pretty quick if I don’t know enough about the scene I’m writing (especially when it comes to dialogue and important, plot-heavy conversations.)

It’s different for my modern-day story, however. I can draft it with a tiny outline and it still comes naturally.

So that’s why I believe it’s different for every writer, and probably for every book as well. It all depends on if it makes it easier for you to write the first draft—that’s where you’re trying to get to.

Hope this helps some! Have fun figuring out your writing process! 😀