Over the years, I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that writing is so much easier if I have an outline. My latest writing project, a soon-to-be-published Pride and Prejudice retelling Comes with an Attitude was the easiest book I’ve ever written, and I attribute that for the large part to the extensive prepping and outlining I did before I started the first draft (granted, it did help that I was following literary genius Jane Austen’s already existing outline!).
My next writing project most likely won’t be as easy. I’m getting back to an urban fantasy novel I started in 2021. I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo, and even though I did have some kind of an outline, it wasn’t enough. While the first and the third acts of that book are in a tolerable shape (at least in terms of the outline and the order of the scenes), the second act is a complete mess of disconnected events and scenes. That means that before I can start the second draft, I need to sort out that mess and come up with a functioning outline.
I’m hoping that this blog post will be helpful if you (like me) are a recovering plantser who wants to improve an old project or if you’re a pantser and you want to reverse outline a project before starting the second draft.
(Disclaimer: there’s nothing wrong with not outlining a book. If you can finish a book without an outline, awesome! There’s no right or wrong way to write. I just happen to be one of those writers who works better with an outline.)
