Novel writing is tough. 

You must keep your characters engaging and the storyline moving, all while keeping track of little details that will make or break your story.

When I started out as a writer, I was a “pantser.” I wrote by the seat of my pants, writing whatever came into my mind. Some people also call this discovery writing.

I wrote the first edition of my novel, The Earthspark, and I tidied up the grammar and sent it off to my editor, expecting them to say, 
“You are the next J. K. Rowling!”

What actually happened was red marks, comments, questions, and confused emojis over 95% of my manuscript. 

It. Was. Awful.

Thankfully, I had amazing editors, and they taught me how to write better because of that experience. 

However, this also taught me the value of outlining my story so that I can make sure I hit certain milestones in my story and that the big details make sense. 

Today, I am sharing my three biggest tips for expanding your outline and making it easier to write your story, because who doesn’t like things to be easier?

Wondering what the milestones of a story are? Check this out.

Tip #1 – Identifying the story goal

You want to write a story because it’s been playing inside your head like a movie for years. I get! I do, because that was me. You have amazing scenes, cool characters, and settings that would rock Lord of the Rings.

But how do you tie all of that together into a story that people actually want to read?

Identify the goal of your story.

When working on the story goal, I like to ask myself questions like these:

• Is it a hero’s quest to find the lost treasure? 
• Is it for a group to save their homeland? 
• Is your main character seeking his or her true love? 
• What about getting the bad guy and making him / her / them pay?
• What theme are you trying to convey? Follow your heart? Bad guys never get the girl? Families come in all shapes and sizes?

Whatever it is, identify the primary goal of your story and write it at the top of your outline. This will be your compass for the rest of your story. Everything must point back to this main story goal.

Tip # 2 – Identify Your Characters’ journeys

Next, we want to consider the journey your character is going on. Will the learn from hard challenges and grow from them? Are they an even-tempered character and have minimal change or growth occur? Do they experience something bad and become worse off because of it?

Start with your protagonist, or your main character that we follow around most. What lessons do they learn? What supporting characters will they interact with and how to they help or hinder each other? 

Do the same thing for your antagonist or your villain in the story. It can also help if you have some idea of what made them become the villain. You don’t have to have it all figured out at this point, but some inkling of where you are taking them will help. 

• A word of caution here. Don’t let your villain be idle while you focus on your protagonist. They are the villain for a reason, and we need to make sure we see them or their handiwork at every milestone.

When you have the journeys for your protagonist and antagonist plotted, use the milestone structure to figure out what they will be doing in each story phase. 

I suggest going through this exercise for every POV character we will encounter in your story. 

Tip #3 – Identify Key Elements of Your Setting

You are building a story in some aspect of a fictional world. Some settings are completely fictional, like Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings. Others are alternate realities like Harry Potter. Finally, some stories are set in the real-world with all the rules associated with it.

Once you know whether your setting takes place in the real world, an alternate reality, or is completely its own, you can determine which details must be included to ground the reader in the story.

Key things to consider are:

• Season (winter, summer, spring, fall)
• Time (Morning, night)
• Basic geography
• Businesses or trades that exist that your character may be part of.
• Political powers (kings, emperors, presidents, mayors, etc.)
• Class systems (elite, white collar, blue collar, poor, etc.)
• Modes of transportation (trains, cars, horses, on foot, etc.)

Don’t worry too much about nailing down the world-building just yet. We will build it out more later. Just make sure you have enough details to get you started.

I hope these three tips help you on your outlining journey, and if you want a more detailed look at how to put together an outline, be sure to check out this post.