Go back to look over your answers and highlight the ideas you believe are most intriguing. Pre-Outline Questions for Fiction Writersġ: What kind of story do you want to write, and what genre will it fit into (example: fast-paced action adventure, supernatural thriller, epic medieval fantasy, etc.)?Ģ: Will you write in past or present tense?ģ: What point of view will you write from?Ĥ: Will this be a long or a short story? Why?ĥ: What do you not want your story to be?ġ2: Can you name one or two minor antagonists (example: a bully, or someone else who does not see eye-to-eye with your hero/heroine)?ġ5: What kind of geographical setting do you want in your story (example: a real place, a historical place, a fictional place, etc.)?ġ6: What kind of social setting do you want in your story?ġ7: Name four or five big moments that will occur in your story?ġ8: Can you think of at least two complications for each of these moments, and will these complications make your characters uncomfortable?ġ9: Which character will be most affected by the inciting event (the inciting event being the event that starts off the plot of your story)? Is he/she your hero/heroine?Ģ0: Does this character have at least two major problems in his/her life? Which offers the most potential for conflict and drama?Ģ1: How will the main antagonist and the minor antagonists work against your hero/heroine and stand between your hero/heroine’s goals and desires?Ģ2: Will the minor antagonists oppose the main antagonist?Ģ3: Will the minor antagonists oppose each other?Ģ4: Where will the story end (with a happy ending where the hero/heroine win, tragic ending where the hero/heroine lose, an unexpected ending, etc.)? This is not the end of your creative process - this is just the beginning. Remember that your answers are not set in stone.
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#Outline for writing a book free
If you don’t yet know the answer to some of the questions, feel free to skip them and return to them later in the process of discovering your story. Keep evaluating your responses - look for those that offer meaty possibilities or intriguing ideas - until you feel you’ve exhausted the angles for the time being. Remember that the questions that follow have no “right” or ”wrong” answers. For those of you who write non-fiction, you will get to answer questions about your niche and develop ideas from that. Answering the pre-outline questions that follow will help you to establish what you want with your book, what you want your book to be, in some bigger strokes what kind of plot you want to have, what kind of characters you want to write about, etc. That’s where the pre-outline questions come in.
![outline for writing a book outline for writing a book](https://g.christianbook.com/g/slideshow/7/736617/main/736617_2_toc_dp.jpg)
No matter what you start off with, that general idea needs to be developed.
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Perhaps you have a certain character in mind, a specific setting (real or fictional), a conflict, a theme, etc. When you create a story you usually begin with a general idea.