How to Outline

I have a secret. I've never written an outline before today. Okay that's a lie. I technically started it yesterday. But I have always been a pantser. (someone who writes without an outline) So creating an outline was hard. Am I supposed to do it by chapters? Should I use three act structure? How much detail should I give? In the end I decided to use three act structure, and wrote about two pages worth of outline. It wasn't crazy, but it gave a good summary for each of my acts, and is now a great road map for the beginning of my story.

Now you can outline in any sort of ways. I tried doing it by chapter, but I got bored, and realized that having too many restriction like how to follow each chapter, just wouldn't work for me. I wanted to be able to choose little details to add, how long each chapter was ect. So I made a summary of each act, and it turned out well. The three parts (entitled Curses, Unnatural, and Remedy) each vary in length from short (Curses) to long (Unnatural) to very long (Remedy). 

You could outline the whole book in one long summary, which may work for you, but for me that is a hassle and would be too hard to read.

But remember, if you are writing a series, you may want to outline the rest of the books. Because you can always change what happens earlier in your book, but one something is published, you can't change what you said earlier in the series.