La Bene Vita

Outlining Your Novel: Traditional Outlining

Traditional outlining involves organizing your plot information by act, chapter and scene and using indenting and numbering/lettering conventions to reflect levels.

Formal traditional outlining (not necessarily as it is applied to fiction outlining) uses the following conventions:

I. Roman numerals for the highest levels.
         A. Capital letters for the second level.
                   1. Numbers for the third level.
                             a. Lowercase letters for the fourth level.

The conventions are arbitrary, and you might do just as well with "Act 1" instead of I, "Chapter 1" instead of A, and "Scene 1" instead of 1. The point is to be consistent so that, at a glance, you can easily identify which level you're seeing.

In the context of a story, an outline might look something like this:

Act 1 or Book 1: Title or description (if applicable.)
         Chapter 1: Title or brief summary.
                   Scene 1: Description

You might also want to add another layer to include information like the characters who appear in the scene.

Act 1 or Book 1: Title or description (if applicable.)
         Chapter 1: Title or brief summary.
                   Scene 1: Description
                             Character 1: Name

Personally, I use a spreadsheet and don't bother with numbers or letters. I indent by one cell, and I can clearly see levels based on spreadsheet columns (which is basically the equivalent of indents.) Not numbering also allows me to easily insert rows or grab scenes and drag them around without renumbering my scenes every time I change the order.

But that's me. I'm a spreadsheet junkie. Word processing applications have built-in outlining features, and novel software like Scrivener and YWriter format outlines automatically.

Here's an example without numbering:

Act 1: The Journey
         Sally gets the bad news and must quickly move away
                   Robert calls Sally
                             Character: Robert
                             Character: Sally
                   Sally quits her job
                             Character: Sally
                             Character: Mr. Boss

Scenes in this format can be easily shuffled around using cut-and-paste or just highlight-and-drag.

Happy outlining!