Visit any writing forum and you’re only a stone’s throw away from the heated argument, “Pantsing vs. Outlining.”

I wanted to update my basic outline article to put this argument for bed once and for all, and explain why outlining will always be your best friend…

Imagine yourself in Middle Earth.

Think of an outline like standing on the tallest cliff on a mountain bordering Rivendell. From this highest peak, you look out at the landscape below and spy Mordor in the distant south east.

A proper outline, is you taking your time to really survey the land between where you are and where you’re headed.

You record landmarks, environmental observations, weather patterns, creatures, people, etc. Anything and everything you see from your panoptic view, plotting your course to Mordor. Nothing escapes your eye, as long as you take the time to look.

• You may not know exactly how long it will take you, you may not know exactly which creatures you run into through Fangorn Forest.
• You may not know how long the heavy rains and fog last or where exactly you’ll take shelter while traveling across Rohan.
• You don’t know if you’ll run into any goblins, orcs, or mercenary patrols skirting around Gondor.

But you know more or less, you’re proceeding through all these places in order to reach the volcanic mountain. Because you took such good notes of the landscape, at any point in your journey, if you find yourself drifting from your intended milestone landmarks, if you find yourself going any other way but south east, toward the mountain, you know you must correct your coarse or fail at reaching your destination.

In contrast, a Pantser just looks off the top of the cliff, catches Mordor on the distant horizon, and screams, “Alright then, south east it is!”

The Truth about Pantsing

In all the years and all the scripts that have crossed my desk, I have discovered two definitive rules about pantsing your way through fiction.

1. Pantsers sacrifice time spent at the beginning, plotting and discovering, for time spent on the backside editing. In my experience, they gain little time at the beginning, but spend much time at the end.
2. It’s rare to find a pantser that doesn’t get into some sort of narrative trouble along the way. Whether it’s a dead end, logic break, or meandering lost in unforeseen territory.

Contrary to popular opinion, a proper outline isn’t a cage; it’s a roadmap, a safety net that gives you the creative freedom to pivot safely, because you already know where your destination lies, or in strict writing terms, already have your core foundational plot points to guide you.

The Secret Power of Pantsing

There’s nothing wrong with pantsing your way through a story. It’s really a personal preference, like driving a sporty car, or an SUV.

But definitely, as far as I’m concerned, pantsing is a more difficult approach to fiction.

That said, there is a secret to pantsing.

While most writers are not consciously aware of this secret, it’s likely the core allure which draws so many writers to it.

When you set off on a journey of fiction, with no real roadmap before you, you automatically create the possibility, that you will venture into a fantastic place of pure spontaneous creativity. That you’ll catch lightning in a bottle, opening up doors you never would have planned to open, arriving to a narrative absolutely and truly unique.

When you “pants,” this absolutely is a possibility.

This is not to say you can’t find your way to a similar place when outlining, but with pantsing the way you get there is through a path of complete and utter freeform exploration. If found, it is perhaps, more spontaneous and truly organic.

As an added bonus, pantsing is generally, more entertaining to the actual writer. Each time you sit down at your keyboard, the sense of never knowing where you’re going to wind up is in itself, energizing.

The Double Sided Edge of Pantsing

This hidden strength of pantsing, is also its greatest weakness, because where there exists a path of true creative brilliance, there exist in turn, a hundred paths that lead to ruin. Or at the very least, an ass-ton of rewriting.

The truth is, most pantsers never find their secret creative path of ultimate power.

Like I said, most of the time, they find paths that gum them up, turn them around, confuse them and get them good and flustered. Good pantsers eventually pull off a solid story, but their process doesn’t deliver a narrative of special quality.

For most people, pantsing their way through a story is more like some Faustian trap, offering the promise of complete creative freedom and highly energetic writing sessions, only to be led down numerous paths into  unforeseen territory and narrative obstacles.

Financial Considerations

There’s another big thing many writers overlook.

If you don’t work from an outline, you eliminate your cheapest point of entry for an editor. 

The pantser’s only editorial options are:

• Review a bunch of disjointed notes. Difficult at best and creating more time for the pantser.
• chapter by chapter assessment. Slow going and unable to see the complete picture, which is limiting for the editor.
• Complete manuscript edit.

That’s it.

As I’ve mentioned in numerous places, if you’re trying to write fiction, it’s much cheaper to have an editor provide developmental edits on a 20 page outline than a 400 page script. Or a 3 page outline for a comic compared to a 32 page script.

Bottom line; pantsing is a high risk approach. Outlining mitigates risk at every step.

Outlines Done Right

I’m going to touch on some specific tips for outline creation below, but I want to point out one major generalization. Most people have a false impression of outlining for one major specific oversight.

They don’t spend enough time in the story discovery process.

If you sit down and try to jam through the outline to your novel in a single session at your computer, your outline is going to feel forced, restrictive, and absolutely feel like a pair of creative handcuffs, rather than the roadmap safety net is should be.

The biggest complaint I hear from pantsers is that writing, allows them creative freedom to explore, but an outline doesn’t.

The outline doesn’t for them, because they do not take the time to explore when making their outline.

This is the story discovery process and it should take as long as you need it to take, in order to capture that feeling of complete exploration. Most pantsers who attempt outlining, attempt to open the fewest amount of creative doors possible. They want to get in and out of the outline as fast as possible and the first doors that offer a viable creative solution are the exact doors they open.

This is completely the wrong approach for outline development.

When developing a proper outline, you should open many many doors as possible. Specifically retarding your acceptance of anyone door, until you’ve denied enough doors, to verify your final choice.

Writing an outline is really like a dress rehearsal for the main play. You want to spend enough time in rehearsal that you know exactly what the story is, how the play will unfold. It’s only on opening night that all the details of the finished play come to life, along with the final improvisations of the actors in their first real performance. The energy of opening night is the energy of developing the generalized outline into the specific final script form.

I personally, typically take about 2-4 weeks for an outline. Though it can certainly be longer, especially on a personal project.

Considering that a full novel manuscript should take you about 12 weeks, 4 weeks or more in the discovery process, really nailing your outline, should show you just how much creative freedom a proper outline actual affords. And why those who spend a few hours or a day writing an outline, always feel creatively handicapped.

 

From the Storycraft for Comics:

“Ultimately an outline serves two functions. First, it allows you to hit all your necessary structural points: inciting incident, turns, reveals, complications, climax, the ending, denouement, etc… Second, it tells the story.

An outline is like an insect with a two stage life cycle. (stay with me here.) You know like some bug that crawls in a hole, or spins a cocoon then comes away as a greater expression of its first form.

That’s an outline.

ALL outlines start off in the Skeleton stage.

(I guess you could call this a “rough” or “loose” outline too, but Skeleton makes me think of Ghost Rider so I’m sticking with it. Plus it kind’a represents the “bones of the story”—see what I did there?)

Anyway, a Skeleton outline is basically a beat sheet. A list of core concepts, ideas and story points. The famous one I like to direct people to is J.K. Rowling’s outline for Harry Potter, seen online here.

Of course a Skeleton doesn’t have to be written in sloppy long hand. You can just as easily throw it together nice and neat in word, final draft of scrivener.

Lot’s of writers who outline, actually stop at the Skeleton stage.

They don’t let their outline metamorphose into its second, Super Saiyan form. These folks get enough organization and direction from a Skeleton to start writing.

I can, and have written from Skeleton outlines like this myself (usually when there’s a ridiculously tight deadline), nothin’ wrong with it. But Skeleton outlines are intimate documents which don’t require significant explanation from one writer to another.

Your goal in the Skeleton outline is to jot down all your thoughts, the most fundamental points of the story.

This would primarily include all the core structural elements, from whatever selection of structure points you like to use for your writing. Maybe you like to use O’Neil’s breakdown (DC comics guide to writing comics) so the crux of your Skeleton would include;

Hook

Inciting Incident

Establish Situation and Conflict

Develop and Complicate

Climax

Denouement

Of course, you’d throw in notes on character arcs, setting, dialogue and everything else imperative to your story. That’s the Skeleton.

* Keep in mind your skeleton should be in some sort of progressive organization that makes sense to you and follows the flow of the story. In other words you don’t want your notes on the ending to be at the top of your list. Keep it sequential so it’s clearer when you go back to it later.

The second stage of an outline, is the full on, Super Saiyan, ultimate version… or as I like to anti-climatically call it, the Comprehensive Outline.

The comprehensive outline builds off of its Skeleton.

You’re throwing some flesh on the skeleton’s core parts, working out your scenes and the story is taking shape. It’s a bit more complicated, and that means I get to blab about some of the specifics.

Think of the process of writing like the process of a sculptor working in clay. The sculptor doesn’t just throw 300 lbs of clay on a pedestal and carve away a perfect statue. They build up. The start with enough clay for the core form (skeleton), then add more clay to flesh out the focal points.

Going from the skeleton directly to your script gives too wide a margin of error.

By first, building out a comprehensive version of the outline, you stream line your effort and increase the effectiveness of your road map.

• Skeleton – vague.
• Comprehensive – partially detailed.
• Script – fully detailed.

 

Ok, let’s get to some specific outline tips:

#1 Focus on the bigger picture

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci

When writing a Comprehensive Outline you want to tell the entire story, you want to paint the clearest picture you can, in the fewest words you can.

One of the most common Comprehensive Outline problems I encounter with new writers in their relentless desire to focus on detail.

Even if your Comprehensive Outline is going to be 20, 30 or more pages, you want to focus on keeping things brief. Brevity should be your goal.

The outline isn’t the place to go into intimate detail.

The script is where you go into detail.

The outline is the in-between place. It’s where the rough ideas of the Skeleton get padded out with just enough info to get a clearer idea of what the final script will need.

The Comprehensive Outline is literally your map and guide. You want a document that answers as many questions as possible–gives you direction.

You want to be able to jump to it at any point and say “Right, I remember this.”

You don’t want a document where you land at a point of the story and say, “Shit, where was I going with this?” Or “You know I’m not really sure if I want to go this way, or this way…”

If you were lost, driving in downtown Detroit at 2am and looked to your road map and said either of those things above, you’re map is pretty damn useless.

So when you put your Comprehensive Outline together, work on describing all the scenes in order. It should tell the story from start to finish. Again as brief as you can.

Stay away from dialogue and tiny details, unless they are critical to understanding the overall story, or you know you absolutely want to translate them into the script.

In the Dark Nova outline excerpt from the back of the Writer’s Guide, I relay some dialogue for the character Ivan in the first paragraph. I added this because I really wanted to capture the character’s personality at that introductory point in the outline. And I wanted to create specific conflict and tension between the characters. These were important enough points to convey in the outline.

My outline would have been more streamlined if I had said “Ivan is verbally abusive to the girls and makes them uncomfortable.”

On the flip side of adding too much detail,  don’t get lazy and leave gaps.

“Oh I’ll just figure that out later.” No you won’t, you’ll get stressed out and hit a wall… figure it out NOW. The outline is the planning stage, that’s the WHOLE point of outlining… dummy.

And don’t write so short, or summarize so much, that you don’t know where to go when you begin writing the script. This is especially important if you’re juggling multiple scripts and tend to take sudden and extended trips to Vegas.

If your outline isn’t fleshed out enough, you could come back and find it stale, not remembering your train of thought or have any idea where you were headed.

Spend ALL the time you need writing your outline.

Writing the script is the easy part. The outline is where you really need to take your time.

#2: One theme to rule them all.

I talk about theme a bit in the book and have other articles about it here on the website. I’m mentioning it again now, because it’s simply that important.

Most good stories have a few different themes within them, but every story has one paramount or master theme. All the events, characters, plots and literary devices support the master theme in one form or another.

If your outline isn’t conveying your master theme, your outline is weak. If your outline doesn’t have a master theme, your Skeleton is missing a critical bone, and it’s not going to be able to stand up.

Personally, I always include a Logline and the Master Theme at the beginning of my outlines.

Example:
The Master Theme for my Sci-fi, cyberpunk adventure, “Harsh Times” honestly, it isn’t a really great one:

“Freedom comes only to those who fight for it.”
But I can use as an example anyway…

In one scene the MC, Harsh is kidnapped. His ship is impounded and the kidnappers threaten to kill his daughter. Now if I didn’t have the master theme, I might come up with a myriad of ways the MC gets out of the situation. Maybe Harsh pays the kidnappers ransom, maybe he calls for help with a homing device in his boot, maybe he’s really a robot imposter and the real Harsh is on a beach somewhere…

I dunno, but you notice that none of those options connect with the Master Theme.

Turning to the Master Theme, the solution is simple. The actual sequence from the script: Harsh fights the kidnappers, jumps through a window and fights his way back to his ship to escape.

This one example is NOT the main decision or defining moment of the MC… so you can see how repeatedly turning to the Master Theme can actually move the writing along and enforce the theme throughout the entire story.

Master theme, make sure you have one.

 

#3: Let your cats out of their bags.

The outline needs to show the complete cycle and transition of the story, including all the major arcs.

Don’t leave cliffhangers, or hooks in order to entice the reader of the outline (even if the reader is just you).

Loose ends in an outline will only unravel later on.

Let’s say you were writing the original Star Wars—don’t ask me to tell you what number that is these days. So as the writer, you know Darth Vader is Luke’s dad and you’re going to have an awesome reveal in the final script.

Don’t just hint to it in the outline “Luke has suspicions of his father’s true identity” and then leave it out or ambiguous as a cliff hanger, thinking  it’s such an important element of the script you already know it and would never leave it out.

All arcs and transformations must be shown to their full expression and conclusion in the outline. Remember your outline is a blueprint, you wouldn’t leave off the toilets on a blueprint to a new house, thinking “oh wait till the new home owner sees where his toilets are, he’ll be so delighted” or “I don’t need to put the doors on the blueprint, of course I know where the doors go…” Uh-huh.

This is not to say that you can’t have a story with unknowns, of course you can. What if we didn’t learn Darth is Luke’s dad until the second movie. OK, then it doesn’t need to be in the outline of the first story.

Or what if we never find out what’s in “the bag” besides that bright golden glow. That’s fine.

The point is any information that’s going to be relayed in the actual script, needs to be present in the outline.

Keep these three tips in mind the next time you work on a Comprehensive Outline and l guarantee it’ll come faster, cleaner and you’ll have a solid foundation to a winning story. ▪

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Nick Macari is a full-time freelance story consultant, developmental editor and writer, working primarily in the independent gaming and comic markets. His first published comic appeared on shelves via Diamond in the late 90’s. Today you can find his comic work on comixology, Amazon, and in select stores around the U.S.