Outline

An outline is probably not necessary for poetry, but can be beneficial for almost any other types of creative writing.

When you write, you may decide that it’s easiest to just keep moving and let it flow out. This is good, except it would be hard to do if you aren’t sure exactly what you are going to write. This is why you would need an outline.

An outline is meant as a way of organizing your thoughts into a story. There is no right or wrong way to outline your story.

You may decide to use the standard form of outlining with roman numerals. It would look something like this:

I. Main Topic One

A. Subtopic One

1. Sentence one

2. Sentence two

B. Subtopic Two

II. Main Topic Two

A. Next subtopic one

1. Next sentence one

2. Next sentence two

B. Next subtopic two

Etc.

You could use the main topic sections for chapters or significant events. Use the subtopics for further smaller events and so on and so forth.

If you would like, you could use simple bullet points or just jot down a paragraph or two per chapter.

It’s not necessarily important that have an outline, just a plan for what you are going to write. If you wanted to write a couple of pages summarizing your entire story, that’s fine too.

In fact, if you are only writing a short story or essay, organizing the plan will be very short and quick. The point is that you have an idea of what you are going to write.

Remember, this is just a simple outline or plan of what you are going to write. You can change anything you want as you go. You might come up with a whole outline and change every last thing except the characters names by the end, and that would be okay.

Now that you know what you are going to write, you can get to it without any hold ups.

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