Outline Your Book or Article

Why outline your book or article?

Everyone’s groaning.  I can hear you!

It’s too bad your English teachers in high school and college made outlining so complicated and painful. They had the right idea, outlines really DO help you to figure out where you’re going in your writing.  I love the idea of free-writing, especially when I’m trying to get thoughts out of my head.  But, I also love the idea of using an outline, because once the structure of my writing project is out there in front of me, I can then return to my free-writing style to fill it in and meet my deadlines.

Too Structured?


I have heard all the reasons NOT to outline:

• ·         It’s too structured.
• ·         It doesn’t allow any creativity
• ·         It restricts my writing

Most of the people who use these excuses don’t write for a living. When you write for a living, you know that your next paycheck depends on meeting your deadlines, and you don’t write only when you’re feeling creative or when the muse strikes you. Writing is a job. You get paid when you sit down and work. By outlining your articles and books you will maximize your time, you’ll write efficiently, and your end product will be high quality.

Breaking it Down – One Piece at a Time


By outlining, you breakdown your project into smaller pieces.  That way you can approach it one piece at a time.  When I’m working on a big writing project, I create the larger outline, then I put each smaller section on a 3 x 5 card and carry it with me in a notebook. That way when I am waiting somewhere, I can write for five minutes and get a section done. Doing this several times will allow me to finish a 1200 word article almost without even realizing that I did it.  By fitting the writing of your book into the nooks and crannies of your life, you will make daily progress toward your goal.

The Easiest Outline

When I outline, I don’t create the complicated Roman Numeral I, Capital A, the number 1, etc. of the traditional outline.  (If you DO outline this way, keep it up, you’re probably more structured than I am, and this could be a good thing). I break down my article or book into manageable pieces.  In an article, I break it down into sections. A book is obviously broken down into chapters.

For each chapter or section you’ll have a title, this tells you what you’ll be covering in that section.  Underneath that title, you’ll write each topic or component that needs to be included in that section. By evaluating each section, you can rearrange them until you have a good flow to your idea. This way, when you go to write, you will not be jumping from idea to idea, sounding vague and scattered. Each section will be approximately the same size.  For a book, this is a really great idea, it will keep you from having chapters that are only two pages long next to chapters that are 70 pages long.

Try this for outlining your book.  Decide how many pages you want in your book. If this is your first book, shoot for about 150 to 160 pages.  Divide this number by 10, which gives you 15 or 16 chapters. Under each chapter title, write about ten ideas that you intend to cover in that chapter. For each idea, you need to write one page.  That’s it.  Write ten pages, you’ve completed a chapter. Write 15 or 16 chapters, your book is done.

It doesn’t really get much easier than that!

Try it, again and again. It will get easier as time goes on, and you'll write faster and faster.  And isn't that the idea?

Kathleen