though it may not be for everyone, i've found outlining my story really helps me to keep focused, make sure i don't get caught out by plotholes, and maintaining a writing schedule. it saves me from writers' block!
THE BASICS OF OUTLINING. → * . &
outlining always seems like a daunting task, especially if you're the kind of person who prefers just to go with the flow, and maybe outlining isn't right for you! i never used to outline my stories up until the end of last year, where i had too many fics to keep track of them all. i had a few scattered notes of what i wanted to put in my story, and i had a relatively clear idea in my head, but piecing them together as i wrote each chapter meant i ended up leaving out important parts or creating plotholes for myself. i found that outlining scene-by-scene helped me greatly in controlling where my story was going to go, while still letting the story flow on its own.
some people like to just generally outline where their story is headed, chapter-by-chapter say, or plotline-by-plotline. i prefer the scene-by-scene method, which is basically detailing how every scene will go step by step. i'll include some examples below but it really helps me to figure out the flow of the story, as well as estimate the size of each chapter and thoroughly plan how my entire story is going to unravel.
i have several documents where i keep all of my story outlines based on their fandom, in a folder labelled 'STORY PLANS' so i don't lose them in random places (scattered amongst the document, notes app, or notebooks, like i used to). for me, i separate them into the following categorized documents (which i have no doubt will expand in variety the more fics i write): 'ASOIAF STORY PLANS', 'IT STORY PLANS', 'MARVEL STORY PLANS', 'ST STORY PLANS', and 'MISC STORY PLANS', the last which contains all of the fics for fandoms i don't write as prevalently. they look something like this:
(more condensed, not that many notes just a general idea):
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