Cure Writer's Block - Outlining Workshop

DAY ONE

Introduction to Outlining

Welcome to the Outlining Workshop. For those who don't know me, my name is Tia Wood. I am an aspiring fantasy/sci-fi/horror novelist and one of my strengths is outlining.

Outlining has helped me overcome many obstacles over the hurdles of writing such as generating novel ideas and curing writer's block. We are going to use four methods of outlining as described below:

• Outlining a Novel
• Outlining a Novel Advanced
• Writer's Block Outlining
• Index Card Outlining

However, these methods are for all types of writing (articles, essays, short stories, songs, grocery lists, etc) and not strictly for novels.

Outlining is a great help in the first draft process and can also help you in the editing process. Each method can be mixed with another or used alone. The fun part is, outlining is a creative process in itself and really helps jump start your inner muse!

For this workshop you will need paper, pen/pencil and index cards. If you don't have index cards handy, you can take a piece of paper and cut it into four parts. Whatever works.

I like to assign homework but homework is optional. You can scan your outlined pages and upload them to ImageShack.us and paste a link here for us to review. Or you can sit back and read. Participation is up to you.

Outlining a Novel Using the Bubble Method

It's exciting when we're in the worst places of places and a novel idea pops into our head. That's usually when I scrounge around in my purse for my tiny composition book and I scribble the main idea of what my novel would be about.

The main idea is important. It can be a simple title, sentence or even a single word. Whatever the main idea is about, write it down in the middle of a piece of paper and circle it. For example, let's say our novel is about the journey of a tiger targeted towards a young adult audience. I would write "journey of a tiger" in the middle of the page and circle it as pictured below.

View Image

The next step is to ask yourself a set of questions which is prompted by the topic. For "journey of a tiger", I could ask: