One Outline to Rule Them All (Even if You Hate Outlining): Blueprint for a Book Step 8

This short outline thing is hard. It’s hard for one of two possible reasons: Either you don’t want to write an outline at all, bc “you know what you’re going to write” or you “hate outlining” or “don’t want to practically write it before I write it” OR you love outlining and could do it all day, to the tune of 17 pages all about what this is about and what it’s going to say and therefore “can’t possibly fit this onto 2 pages!”

Both of you, chill. It’s okay. You’re going to do this, and I suspect that you’ll end up liking it. The cool thing is that the thing that makes it easier—to either outline at all or to make a short outline as opposed to the monster some of us tend to create—is actually the same. (And don’t worry—there’s a place for those monster outline instincts. That’s called pre-writing, and we have a whole episode about it coming up in the fall.) Making outlines for fiction easier is all about where you start (try the end or the middle), and focusing on the emotions and tentpole events rather than on the plot.

In non-fiction, the same reluctance applies—especially if you think you know where you’re going or what you’re doing. Know your topic inside and out? Think you could “write this book in your sleep” because you write, lecture or teach about the subject all the time, or it’s your business? Do you have a list of things to cover chapter by chapter, or a particular memoir story to tell? Then you need an outline desperately. Trust me. Can you write this book without one? Yep. Will it be the book you want it to be? Almost certainly not, and I speak from experience. You, two, may be inclined to either gloss over this, or to want to write reams, going into detail about each area you intend to cover.

But doing either will get in your way. The path to a better book—one that has readers turning the pages of even a how-to in order to get to the next thing, or engrosses them in a chronological story of a thing they’ve never done and have no interest in doing—lies in getting this skeleton right. In non-fiction, that means finding a way to build interest and knowledge so that the reader constantly sees the need to follow you through to the end. In your outline, focus on the repeating themes and topics and the way those develop for the reader as they progress through the book.

Keeping it short forces you to look hard at what you’re building before you cover it with glitter and tinsel and helps you see and work on the flaws before they get baked in.

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