Storytelling: Types of Outlines

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to Storytelling. Types of outlining. Outlining can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be, not if you understand the purpose of an outline. My name is Kit Campbell. I'm a hybrid author, which means I'm both traditionally and indie published. And I've also worked as an editor, a manager of an indie co op, a book format, a cover designer, Basically all points of the writing process. This class is part of the writer's motivation series, which is designed to help writers like you find the writing processes that will work best for them. If you'd like to learn more about the writers motivation series, please visit microfile here on skill share. This class is for beginning and intermediate authors. Basically anyone who would like to understand how to outline people who find outlining Intimidating. Please note that this class is designed for fiction writers, but people who write other things may also find the information helpful. Understanding what outlining is can help you use it in your own writing. It can help you make sure you're getting the story that you want and write both faster and more efficiently. By the end of this class, you will understand the purpose of an outline and you will have a number of different techniques to try in your own writing to see what works best for you. Let's get going. 2. What is an Outline?: Before we talk about types of outlining, we first need to establish what an outline is. You're probably familiar with the outline form they teach you back in school. You know the one with the numbers and letters and Roman numerals. That is indeed a type of outline, but it's more of a style than anything else. But more generally, an outline is a plan you make for your story. As such, how much outline a person needs and what specifically someone needs varies person to person. Some people need very little, maybe just a character and a starting situation where others prefer to have pages and pages of outline touching on key plot points, characterarcs, setting themes, et cetera. But essentially you need something to start writing that something is part of your outline. If you've taken some of my other courses, you've probably heard these terms before. They're fairly common throughout the writing community. If you do certain writing challenges, you may be asked to identify as one or the other. A plotter is someone who sits down and plots out their whole story before they start writing. A panther requires very little information before they jump into their story. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. And people may vary based on different types of projects. Such as plotting out a short story meticulously and being less strict when it comes to a novel or between nonfiction and fiction, et cetera. I will note that Panthers may still have an outline for a story. It's not necessarily this happens then that traditional outline that we think of. But they may flesh out their world, character, theme, and or arcs in a less official manner. How do you know how much outline you personally need in order to write a story? Well, as we mentioned before, it varies. Person to person can even vary for that person depending on what they're working on. I found the amount of outline you need can change throughout your own career. Every book is different. After all, things that may work on one may not work on another though. I know it's a hard answer. How you know, how much to outline you need comes down to your own experience. I know I'm much more successful if I plot out my plot and character arcs instead of living things to chance. Something I had to learn over time, and many meandering drafts with pacing issues. A little later in the course, we'll discuss how to get started with outlining if you're new to the process. And how to try out different levels to see where you should start. What are the parts of an outline? Well, again, this is going to be subjective. A basic outline, the one people think of the most when they think outline centers on the plot. Plot is the order of events that happen in a story. Things like character A and B discover a dead body in their garden. When they call the police, they discover someone has framed them for the murder. To be fair, almost all outlines are going to include plot. Even if you're a panther, you still have a starting situation. That's plot, even if you don't know what's going to happen next. Having a good idea of what type of story you want to write is also a good thing. Is this a novel, short story, A novella? What's the genre? Aside from that, outlines often need characters. Your characters often influence the direction the story goes in. And it can be helpful to know at least some of the things about your main ones. Setting can also be useful. Where is your story taking place? Other things that may also be found in your outline include themes, arts, both plot and character. Target word counts for each section. Goals of scenes, such as the scene introduces love, interest, bits of pros and dialogue that you've thought of. And don't want to lose your premise and your chronology, especially if you're mixing timelines or telling a story out of order. Now, do you need all this? Not necessarily. As we said before, that is up to you now that we have an idea of what an outline is. In our next section, we'll talk about why we want one. 3. Why Do I Want One?: Outlining can seem overwhelming or confusing. Let's establish why It's worth the trouble. Your outline serves as a guide for you while you're writing your project. It helps you remember what your plan was, keeps all your information in one handy spot. It can help you develop vague ideas into something deep and meaningful. It can also help you spot problems before you get started. It helps you write your story. Simple as that. But doesn't it trap me? No, some people feel that outlining holds them back. That they're trapped into the story that they've planned. The story must happen exactly as planned. Creativity is dead. This simply isn't true. An outline works for you, not the other way around. That's why we talked about experimenting to see what works for you and how much information you need on your outline. Also, an outline is not a static document. If you write a scene and it's more natural to go a different way than you plot it out, great, update your outline. If the ending feels forced, try something else. There's nothing that says you have to stay with your outline if it stops fitting the story. Beyond that, you can outline at any point in your writing process. If you started off panting and find yourself in a corner, you can start outlining from that point to figure out how to get from where you are to where you want to be. You can also outline revisions and rewrites because you already know the story and what's wrong with it. It can help to plan out what needs to be changed and how, which can help you limit the amount of drafts you need to go through. One of the biggest benefits of outlining is that it can eliminate many, perhaps even most, causes of writer's block. Have you ever been happily writing along, throwing everything in the kitchen sink at your character and run into a brick wall? Things have gone too terrible and you don't see how they can get out of it. Or perhaps your main character is flitting from subplot to subplot, not getting anywhere because you're not sure what they're trying to do. An outline can be basic, just knowing what your character wants and whether it will be a good or a bad thing, when or if they get it, can help shape your narrative. A more structured outline can help you know where you're supposed to be, when and what needs to happen at that point. For an example, at the midpoint she finds out her sister isn't her sister at all. Nothing has to be specific. You don't have to go into any great detail. But knowing where you're going even vaguely helps you avoid getting lost in the first place. Next session, we'll talk about getting started without lining. 4. Getting Started: Now that we know what an outline is and why we want one, let's talk about getting started with outlining. If you're new to outlining, I highly recommend starting with very basic information and adding more until it feels right. You want to avoid what I call plot death, which is where essentially you overplan and lose all interest in actually writing the story because all the creativity has gone into the outline. I see plot death a lot with writing challenges, especially nano mo where there is a set starting date. Most people have a general range of information they need to start writing too little. And they get stuck too much, and the story has lost its magic. If you're new, start with a little. Keep adding stuff in until you can start to see the story in your head. But where do you start? First off, try your premise. A premise is the idea of your story. If you need more help on that, you might look at my premise versus plot class here on skill share. Some people can start from just a premise, but most people will need more. I recommend trying either character or a basic plot. Once you know your premise, this doesn't have to be much. Your character can be rose, 53, newly divorced. Your plot can be recently divorced. Woman tries to figure out who she is on her own. See how you feel after each step. Are you excited to write? Can you see the story in your head starting to feel it, but feel like you need something else to actually start add something else. Some things you can add as needed are character back story, story structure and major plat points, world building, other characters, et cetera. But how do you outline? By this I mean how do you physically create an outline? What supplies do you need, what do they look like, et cetera? The answer is, it's up to you. I know I've said that a lot this class, but outlining is a really personal process. What works for someone else might drive you up the wall. In the next few sections of the class, we're going to go over outline types. I'll leave the what outlining looks like for those. However, almost all the techniques we're going to go over can be done both digitally or by hand. Whichever works better for you. I often use a combination of both since doing my outlines on a computer helps me have a central location to access them from. But sometimes I think better on paper. Here are some supplies you might try. Pen and paper. I recommend a pen over pencil because there's something more formal about pen, something that gives the outline more weight. Also pencil smears over time. Word processing document. You can do this locally on word or your favorite word processor, or on the cloud through something like Google Docs writing program. If you use a writing program like Scrivener, they often include a way to outline your stories. Most of the techniques we'll discuss can be done with these supplies. There are a few that may require something additional, such as note cards. We've already talked about this. But remember that you can change your outline. I know this is a scary concept for some people. What's the point of an outline if you don't have to stick with it? What good is it if you're going to leave the path and get lost in the woods anyway. But if an outline isn't working, you're going to have a hard time getting your story done. Why not fix it to make sure it's helping? If you had something that was a little vague early on and figured out how to do it, why wouldn't you add that detail? Here's the story for you guys. I was working on a fantasy novel and I initially outlined it using a new outlining technique that had been recommended to me. It did not work. Maybe a quarter of the way into the draft. I went back and re outlined the story using my normal method and life got much easier after that. Your outline is for you, it needs to help you succeed, not hinder you that all being said, you want to be careful. You can muddle up an outline to the point where the story has gotten confused. Some things can be added without worry. More detail if you had less before, new information about characters or the world as you come up with it, et cetera. But if your story itself has changed enough to the point where you're considering changing the plot parts of your outline. Remember these tips. One, identify the core of your story. This is basically the main idea what drew you to the story. In some cases, this is your theme. Something like our relationships with those who love us are what makes us human. Or always be true to yourself. You could also be your character or your premise, or your world. You want to avoid changing the core of your story because you run the risk of turning a story you were excited about into one that you're not. As an aside, you can change the core of your story if you have a good reason to do so. Such as realizing what you thought was your theme is really something else, but you need to be aware of what you're doing and why. Two, keep your original outline. Cross out the parts that aren't working or copy paste them somewhere else, but don't get rid of them. You may find that your change isn't working as well as you thought it would, or you may find that the best way forward is to combine elements from your original outline and your new one. You don't want to miss something awesome because you deleted something that will still work somewhere else. I find it helpful to track my outline flow if I run into issues down the line. Three, if you find you're changing your outline constantly, try different outline. If you're always changing things, you might have the wrong type of outline for that particular project. You might consider using a less structured outline that gives you more leeway on how you hit your plot points. For example, an outline works for you, but an outline that is constantly being changed can lose its usefulness over time. If you have any questions, remember, you can always ask them down in the comment section. Our next section, we'll look at basic outline types. 5. Basic Outlines: In this section, we'll look at Basic Outlines. These are simple outlines with a minimum amount of structure that are designed to get you writing as quickly as possible. They also may not contain as much information as more complex outline types and focus more on characters, backstory, and world building over plot and story arcs. First, we have premise. Premise isn't really an outline per se, but it is the most basic way to plan out your story. A lot of pancers use this method. This is where you have an idea for a story which may or may not actually be a premise. Knowing your idea, you then play around with it until you feel like you have enough to start, which varies by person, and then you start writing. Back when I panced, I tended to have a main character, a starting point, and a vague idea of what the point of the story was. Here's an example for you. A man lost in a snowstorm stumbles upon a gateway to another world. From here I would do a basic character study. Name, age, why he's here in the snow and a starting point crashed his car. Figured his survival chances were better on the road than in a smashed up car. Maybe a theme like any place can be home. If you put your heart into it, basically you just need enough information to get going and then you go. This can be a good method to try out an idea if you're not sure about writing it. If you can't get at least a main character, a starting place, and the hint of a plot, the idea probably needs more work before you can do anything with it. Free writing is a technique where you sit down and write without pre planning what you're writing about or thinking too hard about it while you're doing it, the idea is to just let the words flow from your fingers. Sometimes you'll get some really good stuff that was otherwise blocked from coming out. To use free writing as an outline technique, you just sit and write until you get something usable out of it. I often use free writing to brainstorm plot points and potential plot events if I get stuck on something I didn't previously outline in more depth. Here's an example from a sci fi story I recently finished. I'm not going to read it, but you're welcome to pause the video and read it if you so choose. The idea with free writing is that you let everything out without censoring it. Hopefully, in the process you find what you need to start writing. It can be very helpful for figuring out backstory and plot, as well as for adding depth and twists into your planning. Mind mapping is a visual technique that works somewhat like free writing and that you don't think too hard about it while you're doing it. And just follow the flow of your thoughts wherever they happen to go. It can be like into a visual version of free writing, but it can be very helpful in organizing a subject into topics. There are various mind mapping techniques, but most of them include branching off a central point and creating nodes of related subjects. You can also come back to them and add on later if you need to, and connect bubbles from different nodes. Here's an example of a mind map. This is for a nonfiction book I wrote about writing around the responsibilities in your life. As you can see, there's a central hub with branching hubs off of it. Each of the branching hubs has its own branching hubs. It's a visual way to lay out a book. You can put your thoughts for sections together. Well, I almost always use paper for my mind maps. Computer software does exist to do the same thing if you're more comfortable working on electronics or you're worried about losing your paper copy. If you don't find you need much information before you start writing a story, a basic outline may be all you need. However, you may find you need more information and or structure basic outlines can still be useful at specific points in your process, especially if you need to just figure things out. The next section will discuss intermediate outline types. 6. Intermediate Outlines: Let's move on to intermediate outline types. Intermediate outlines fall between what some may consider pansing I, a basic outline type as previously discussed, which is really just idea generation plotting which are more structured. Outlines we'll discuss in the next section. That's not to say you can't completely outline your plot in detail with the methods in this section, just that you can be more organized should you choose. Again, remember that your outline only needs to help you write your story. So it can take whatever form you want it to. Nobody's ever going to see it except you unless you let them. It doesn't need to be pretty or any of that jazz. Feel free to combine methods if you need to. No judgment here. Phase outlining is nice and straightforward. You start at the beginning and go all the way through, or as far as you want to, making a basic list of scenes with one or two sentence bullet points. This allows you to have an idea of where the story is going, but allows you a lot of freedom when it comes to other elements such as themes, characterizations, structure, et cetera. Here's an example, using my Si serial. Again, feel free to pause to read in detail if you'd like. You can see it's basically this. Then this happens, then this happens. I started my sci fi serial several years ago before my current outlining process was in place. It's a hotpodge of styles. Plus I was outlining as I went my current iteration of outlining, I tend to outline major plot points, which we'll talk about in the structured outline section, and then phase outline in between those plot points. A related type of outlining involves note cards. Each card gets a sense describing a scene as opposed to listing everything in one place. The advantage of this is that it's easy to move scenes around, adding new scenes, or pull scenes out without scribbling all over the place. Here is an example of using the note card outlining method. These are from a novel that I co wrote that came out in 2016 called A City of Hope and Ruin. You can see there's a scene on each card. Then I also have some additional stuff such as point of view and whether it's part of the plot or a subplot, which is the main conflict in the scene. Then also what is the point of the scene. Both of these methods are good for determining what's going to happen in what order. Points and cards can be specific or vague depending on what you know and can be fleshed out in the future. As you learn more about your story, I'm want to stop here for a minute to show you an example, Outline, combination, Phase. Outlining really goes with anything in my opinion, but I use a combination of premise and phase outlining when I'm working on a short story. I may also include some free writing to build from the premise before I do the phase outlining section. This is from a short story I wrote that was published a few months ago. The premise is that cats and dragons are the same thing. And you can get rid of a dragon by giving it milk so it turns back into a cat. I have a few lines of free writing to give the story of basic structure. Then I phased outlined the entire story. I find this method works well for short stories because they don't tend to require a lot of complexity. But this is just one way you can use different outlining techniques in conjunction with each other. Reverse outlining isn't a specific technique, much as a twist that can be used with a different type of outlining. With reverse outlining, you start at the end and work your way back. The idea is that if you know where your story ends, it's easier to build out the rest of the plot. Here's an example where I have free written from the end of the story. Okay, at the end of the book, I want my main character to have been captured by the opposing army. Why did they capture her? She made a mistake. Doing what? A mission behind enemy lines to get something, a powerful artifact that the other side is using against her people. If she gets it, it will turn the tide of the war. Why was she chosen for this mission? There was a team. What happened to the rest of the team? One by one, They all fell. This can be a good way to plot, especially if you have issues with your endings. And it can help build intention and twists earlier in the story. In tent pole outlining, you identify the three main tent poles of your plot, which are the inciting incident or first plot point. The midpoint and the climax terminology varies on what these plot points are called. This is the first technical outlining technique we're going to look at and can be helpful for pacing and structure. If that's something you have issues with by knowing what needs to happen at a specific point. The first plot point happens about 25% of the way through the story. Mid, 0.50% et cetera. You can have an idea of where you need to be when and can plan your rising and falling action and plot progression accordingly. You can also have tent poles for yourself, plots and arcs. I typically do them for the internal arc, external arc, and any relational arcs I may have, which is how characters relate to other characters. You do need to have a general idea of how long the story is going to be. 25% of who knows is still who knows. But 25% of 100,000 words is 25,000 words. But this allows you to see generally where you need to be while giving yourself a lot of creative freedom between the tent poles. Let's run an example with our car crash victim from earlier. If you recall, the premise was that a man lost in a snowstorm stumbles through a portal to a new land. Your first plot point is often the point of no return. The character has to continue on with their adventure. The midpoint, sometimes called the midpoint reversal, is where something major changes, meaning the character needs to change to the second Plot point is what leads the character into the climax. Working with that, our first tent pole is our man decides to leave the car. The midpoint is that the man learns he cannot return through the portal. The second tent pole is the man discovers he might have a place in this new world. As you can see, this can be pretty big. I would probably also do an internal arc, probably about feeling lost in his old life and working toward finding his place in the world. If I was going to do a romance or friendship arc, I would add in tent poles for that as well. Act outlining is essentially more in depth tent pole outlining. Basically instead of just three plot points, you add more but still building on a basic three X structure. There are different versions of this. I use Michael Higgs version, which works in a series of stages and turning points. If you'd like more information, his website is Storymastery.com This method was originally developed from screenplays. It works well for novels as well. Both this and the Tent Pole method can be a good compromise for people who worry and outline will kill their creativity. With these, you'll know where you're going, but not how you're going to get there. Our next section, we'll look at more structured outlining techniques. 7. Structured Outlines: In this section, we'll get into structured outline types. Structured outlines are designed for people who like to know where their story is going and how it's going to get there before they start writing. These outline techniques can take a lot of work to complete, but because problems tend to get fixed in the outlining process, the actual writing is often easier. Many of these techniques result in long outlines, often in the tens of thousands of words and several pages long. Ballpark That being said, these methods do run the gamut. Some still afford a lot of creative freedom while reading, while others don't. I don't recommend starting out with these methods. It's very easy to burn yourself out on the outlining process if these are too intense for you. Start less structured and build up until you find what works for you. The cat was originally designed for screenplay reading, but has been adapted for novels. See if the cat and techniques like it feature beats where specific things happen at specific times, normally at a percentage of the way through the story. Which does mean that you need to have a ballpark idea of how long the story is going to be when you start outlining it. Save the cat specifically has 15 beats. You can find resources for this method on the Internet at Save the Cat.com or read Blake Snyder's book of the same name. There is also a book, Save the Cat writes a novel specifically for novel writing. A similar method to save the cat that you might have heard of before is the Hero's Journey. The Hero's journey is a method often attributed to classical literature, which features 12 distinct plot points. Chapter by chapter. Outlining is basically a basic outline combined with a bit more structure. Some people like to have their chapters be about equal length, which allows them to figure out how many chapters they will need in a book and about how many words go in each chapter. This method allows them to figure out what specifically goes in each chapter. Alternately, this can be considered a variation on phase outlining, where you're combining information into chapters, as opposed to just listing what happens in order with no breaks. This method can also be combined with the next one. You can use whatever format you like. With this method combined with phase outlining, you might end up with a list of events for each chapter, or you might write out a short summary of what happens in the chapter. Despite the name, the structure plus method doesn't actually involve a lot of structure. What this is, is a way to organize a lot of information and keep track of it in the places it's relevant. Instead of just listing the events in a chronological order, more context is added, including the setting, characters involved, and the purpose or goal of the scene. This is where the structure comes in to some extent as the point of the scene often relates directly to the plot progression. And can be something like complicates the relationship between these two characters. Or foreshadows a major plot point. To build off our example from the chapter by chapter method. Here we've added setting characters, plot, and purpose to the basic situation I had outlined for chapter one. This method is a combination of other methods, which means it can be a good way to try out a more complicated outlining method to see if it will work for you. It can help you keep track of your characters and settings, including time of day and how much time has passed between scenes or chapters. And it can help you build in your themes and arcs into the outline itself. Additionally, it can be a good way to keep all your information in one place instead of having to go somewhere else to look up information, especially if you include a list of characters and world building. The snowflake method is an in depth outlining method that is often considered to be one of the most intense ways to outline you. Start out simple with a single sense about your story on each following step, add more detail to the outline and the story. There are ten steps in the snowflake method. Here are the ten steps of the snowflake method. You can find more information about the method through a Google search if you're interested. The idea behind this method is that like a snowflake which gains detail as you examine it closer, your story can be looked at closer and closer, finding more detail at each level. In addition, by starting at the big picture and moving into more detail, you avoid some issues you might otherwise run into by outlining chronologically, such as pacing issues or missing steps in your subplots. This method is quite different from the other ones we've discussed. Don't feel bad if this one doesn't work for you. It can be quite hard to sit down and pull out a ton of detail for a story if you haven't spent a significant amount of time thinking about it or if you're new to writing or outlining. The methods we've discussed are just some of the many outline variations that exist. Try them on their own or in combinations or modify them to work better for you. Find examples online of how other authors work and see if any of their methods can be combined with ones you use. You'll find something that works. As you get more experience, you'll get a better idea of what you personally need to be successful when writing. 8. Revision and Troubleshooting: In this section, we'll discuss how to use outlines for revision, as well as how to troubleshoot issues you may be running into when outlining. Well, we normally consider outlines a tool to be used in the writing of something. I would argue that they're actually more important as a revision tool. Yes, having an idea where a novel or a non fiction book is going helps with the writing. But if you don't know where you want to be at the end of your revision, you'll find yourself putting out draft after draft, perhaps never quite getting where you want to be, just so we're all on the same page. Revision is the process of taking the book you have and making it the book you want. But if you don't know what you want, that's why I recommend using outlines for revision. You've written the book, you know how the story is supposed to go. Your job at this stage is to make the story work. Even Panthers can use outlines in the revision process. You have the shape of the story already. By outlining the story you have into the story you want it to be. You make revision all that much easier. And you can make sure that you're incorporating what the story needs in it, resulting in a story which is coherent, logical, complete, and beautiful writing is right brained, revision is left brained. Having an outline at this point can help you see where scenes seem to be added or deleted, where beats from different subplots need to be added and help you add in complexity or take it out in the place and where it's needed. All right, here's an example of using note cards for a revision outline. This is the same story that I was using for the note card example in an earlier section. You can see that it's got the scene on it again. It also has what order they go in and what pages they were in the original draft. I know where to edit them. You can see that they are different colors. I color code my Revision Note cards based on how much work is needed on the scene. I also use red ones for scenes that either don't exist or need to be massively fixed. Green means said, it's essentially fine the way it is. And then yellow and orange in the middle. If you've run into issues with revision before, try outlining. It can also be beneficial to note what you keep rewriting, character motivation, plot flow, et cetera, and focus on that in your outlining. Now we'll look at some common issues with outlining. They tend to fall into these three categories which we'll look at individually. First off, over outlining or over planning. Essentially, all your creative energy goes into the outline. By the time you get to reading, you're bored of the story and no longer want to write it. This can be a hard problem to fix. Since you can't unplan, It's best to start with a more basic outline and add complexity and steps. You're making sure you're not hitting your limit, but if you find you have over planned, it's best to give the work some distance, work on something else for a while. Then when you come back to it, you may find that it's regained some of its mystery or you can outline with less detail. Now that's not so clear in your mind or you can skim your notes instead of reading everything. Next we'll look at under outlining or under planning. If you under plan, you might find yourself getting stuck a lot, unsure where the story is going or what you're trying to accomplish, which in turn can lead to writer's block. The good news is that this is an easy, or at least easier, problem to fix. Just plan more. If you're not a plotter and don't want to be, you can free write or mind map the next section of the book. I also find phase outlining the next part can fix this problem. If even that feels like too much, try a simple fix. When you stop writing for the day, leave yourself a little note about where you were going. Some authors like to stop in the middle of a sentence, which forces you to try and recreate your frame of mind from the previous session, while others drop down a few notes about where to go next. Lastly, we'll tackle what happens when you feel trapped by your outline. This mostly happens when you're writing along and a character makes a different decision than the one you planned out, One that feels more natural but will change everything following it. Remember above all that your outline works for you. It is a tool designed to move the story forward and avoid stupid issues. And plotting, nothing says that it has to stay the same throughout the entire process. If something better comes along, give it a look. If you don't want to get rid of your original outline, make a copy with the new information and see how that looks and do that as necessary throughout your drafting process. I do want to recommend outlining the change as opposed to just running with it. Give your new story parts the same scrutiny you gave the original to make sure you're not introducing anything. That will be hard to fix. 9. Project and Wrap-up: Congratulations, you've made it through the course. Now it's time for our project. We're going to outline a story. This can be purely for practice or can be for a story that you intend to write. And can be for a short story, a novel, or whatever project you're interested in. I'd like you to pick out a technique from the ones we've discussed. If you're feeling motivated, you can pick out one technique from each of the three categories, basic, intermediate, and structured. You're also welcome to use a combination of techniques. If you would like, please post what method you've picked in the project section. You're also free to use any of the supplies that we talked about. You can do it on the computer or on paper. You can use visual software or not cards, whatever feels right for the method or methods you've selected. After you've outlined your story, I'd love for you to come back and update your project with how it went. Was it easy to get to the point where you felt you could start writing? Was the method you chose too simple or too complicated? You're free to share your outlines if you're comfortable doing so. But the point here is to focus on the process and find what is going to work for you in the future. Thank you again for taking this class and good luck with your project.