WRITING AND FINISHING A NOVEL #3

Wow! So, we've made it to Tip Three for writing and completing your novel. I have to warn you, some people will really not like this one (at one time I wouldn't have, either). 

WRITE AN OUTLINE

See, I told you! I understand that some people don't want to write this way, but all I have to work from is personal experience. The first manuscript I attempted to write, I ended up with about 36,000 words and an incomplete story. I've gone back to that mess several times to make it happen, but it never has. I wouldn't wish this upon you, so here are five reasons to outline your novel.

1. You Know the Big Picture
You have a birds eye view of your story from beginning to end. This helps on all sorts of levels from pacing (see point three below) to characters (we'll tackle this next time). You may not have every nuance broken down yet, but you have a story arc and a central theme. You are going places, and believe me, that is a powerful motivation to sit down and write every day!

2. You Can Experiment With an Idea 
I hate to throw away anything I write, much less if I've invested hours on crafting and nurturing emotion into those words. If you outline, you can potentially save yourself hundreds or thousands of words and countless hours. It is much easier for you to delete an uncooperative paragraph than it is to cut out-of-place chapters.

3. You Have a Better Sense of Your Story's Pacing
It is far more efficient to shuffle through a two or three-page document than a 90,000-word story. By outlining, you give yourself the advantage of having a panoramic view of your story without the cumbersome back and forth frustration. This will make it much easier to spot inconsistencies, plot holes, and slow (or fast) pacing.

4. You Will Save Time Editing
While this is a general rule of thumb, an outlined manuscript will need far fewer rounds of content editing. Refer to point number two. You will have done your experimenting and rabbit-trailing on the outline and by the time you write the actual manuscript, you'll have a much tighter plot to work with.

5. You HaveYour Synopsis Already Started
The way I outline, I write roughly one paragraph per chapter. This isn't too detailed, but it gives me a snapshot of the chapter. The beauty of this type of outline is that you can, with editing and polishing, quickly finesse it into a synopsis. And a synopsis is something you will need if you are going to be submitting your work to an agent.

Here's what I suggest. If this is your first time writing a novel, give yourself the best chance of completing it by writing an outline. Save the experimentation and fancy footwork for down the road, when you have more experience. Focus, instead, on crafting the best story and characters (coming up in next week's tip) that you can and see where that takes you!

Click here to see Tip Number One.
Click here to see Tip Number Two.

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