Novel Outline Template

What a novel outline is for

An outline answers one question before you write: does this story go anywhere? It does not have to be long, and it does not have to bind you. A page that says who wants what, what stands in the way, how it turns and how it ends is enough to start a draft, and enough to tell you early if the middle is empty. Writers who prefer to discover their story can fill in only the first section and the ending, and come back to the acts as the draft takes shape.

Start with the want, the opposition and the ending

The premise, the opposition and the ending hold the rest up. The premise says who wants what. The opposition says why they cannot simply have it, and it should be a person or a force with its own goals, not only bad luck. The ending says how the story answers the question the premise raised. Decide the ending now, even if you change it later: a writer who knows where the book lands makes better choices about every scene on the way.

The field for the protagonist asks for want and need together because the gap between them is the story. Cora wants to be done with the orchard and needs to be forgiven by it; the plot is what makes her find out.

Three acts as a scaffold

The three acts on this sheet are a scaffold, not a formula. Act One sets up the world and ends with a choice that commits the hero. Act Two is the longest and has two halves: the hero pursues the goal, a midpoint reversal changes what they understand, and the pressure rises until the low point. Act Three is the climax and what follows. The percentages are rough guides, and a book can bend them without breaking.

Write each box as a cause of the next. The inciting incident should lead to the first turning point, and the low point should come from the complications. If you can only join two boxes with the word "then", the outline is a list of events; if you can join them with "because" or "so", it is a plot.

Subplots, length and revision

Subplots should cross the main story at least twice, usually near the midpoint and the climax, and ideally pay off the theme from another angle. A subplot that never touches the main plot is a separate book. Set a target length and a chapter count so you can see whether the outline has enough in it: a 90,000-word novel in 34 chapters needs about 2,600 words of story in each.

Treat the outline as a living document. When a scene in the draft changes the plot, change the outline too, so that at the end of the first draft you have a map of what the book actually does.