Outlines: Save Cash, Write Faster, Stress Less

Being neurospicy, outlining is especially important for me.

Outlines are time management tools that can save many an author ample amounts of cash, writing hours, and headache. If you’ve been consistently told by professionals that your manuscripts need extensive services, felt like you spent way too much time in self-revisions simply because your ideas while writing were all over the place, or have repeatedly written yourself into a corner while creating your manuscript, using an outline could help with one or all of these issues.

WHAT IS AN OUTLINE?

An outline is simply a general list of what is going to be included in your manuscript, often in the order in which it will be written.

For example, an outline for Little Red Riding Hood might look like:

1. Red leaves home with food and medicine for Granny.

2. Red and her Granny are swallowed up (☺) by the wolf.

3. Red and her Granny are cut out of the wolf’s stomach by the hunter.

While writing, you’ll be filling in the gaps, fleshing out characters, and adding more worldbuilding details, but there are writers who could create a basic three-point outline like this in about two minutes and that’s all they would need to finish their manuscript, whether it be a short story or an epic-length novel.