How to Create a Nonfiction Book Outline

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How to Create a Nonfiction Book Outline

This might sound a little crazy, but when I was in high school and university, I loved to make outlines. It was the stuff that came after the outline that I always had trouble with. But, because I had a detailed outline I could refer to, the writing was a lot easier than it would have been without an outline.

I've created countless outlines whether they were for essays, short answer questions, or a formal presentation. I’ve even created mini-outlines when I wrote exams to help me stay on topic.

I still enjoy creating outlines today and use them for many of my daily tasks. If it wasn't for a detailed outline, I wouldn't have been able to write my book Keep More Money in just two months. Let’s dig into why outlines are so great.

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12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Subplots

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12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Subplots

Adding subplots to your novel is a really great way to make your story more interesting as well as help you hit your word count goal. So far in this series, 12 Days of Planning Your Novel, I’ve covered figuring out what to write about, conducting research, character development, story vs. plot, starting your outline, creating conflict, and using other stories as inspiration. Let’s talk about the importance of subplots and how you can add them to your outline in a natural way.

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12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Start Your Outline

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12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Start Your Outline

The next step in planning your novel involves mapping out the major scenes in your novel. In my last post, I talked about the difference between story and plot, and in today’s post we are going to be moving on from your story and starting to work more on your plot.

In the post about conducting research for your novel, I mentioned how genre stories have obligatory scenes. We are going to be working with those obligatory scenes today so if you haven’t finished researching the kinds of scenes you need for your novel, this is a great place to start.

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