The Second-Draft Outlining Process I Use to Eliminate Most Plot Holes
Helping you understand the complexity and importance of multiple drafts and outlines
Drafting is one of the most important parts about writing a book, and many don’t understand that before you publish a book it goes through multiple drafts… at least three. Outlining is used to minimize the number of drafts you have to write, but some things that need to be fixed just like to come out as you write it, rather than as you outline it.
I’m finding that spending a few weeks outlining my second draft is helping me figure out a lot of plot holes that I wouldn’t have caught until I spent three months writing the actual book.
Start with your previous outline
If you made an outline for your first draft, then great! Lots of work is already done for you. If you pantsed your first draft, make sure to check out these posts:
They contain my process for outlining my first drafts.
Now that you’ve got that outline in front of you, take a moment to start a new page in your notebook or a new document for brainstorms or whatever you use.
Take your main plot points, your scenes, or your chapters, and then expand upon them as much as you can. Go through your whole outline like this, expanding and making sure to mention every plot-pertinent detail.
Highlight
Next, get yourself some highlighters or open the highlighting menu. Get yourself three colors that will look nice next to each other so that you don’t drive yourself mad when they don’t coordinate later. (Guilty as charged. In the end I chose 3 shades of blue.)
These three colors will be used as your scene outline markers. One is for the goal of the scene, one is for the conflict, and one is for the decision. This helps scenes flow from A to B easily, and it also eliminates those points that make readers want to put the book down because things aren’t moving well.
Those are the most important things you’ll highlight; however, I also highlight things that I need to worldbuild for, when a character is first introduced, and when they speak a different language (so that I can do the research ahead of time. And yes, this happens a lot in my current WIP, haha).
Take notes
I like to use the comment feature, but if you’re working on paper or would prefer to use paper then that works just as well!
Sometimes we writers can be scatterbrained and we don’t like to stay on task or remember things to work on later. Taking notes can help with this.
If you make a note that something needs to be worked out in the plot, or that you don’t know what a character’s motive is, or that you need to name the street, then you’ll be able to come back to it later when you’re in that investigative mood and want to do some plot building.
Review. A lot.
Make sure to read through your outline at least five times so that you can be sure to catch anything that doesn’t make sense.
For example, I have been planning on this one scene for forever and I finally got to outlining it. Then I realized that it was completely purposeless, took up space, and now I have to think of a logical answer for it.
It’s important that we catch these things early on!
Write practice scenes
If there are scenes that just aren’t working, then try writing them out in order to figure out what you’re really trying to do through the scene. Ask lots of questions and do your best to figure out the goal, conflict, and decision after you’ve practiced the scene once or twice.
Let’s Outline
This is the process I am in the middle of right now— more like in the beginning of. I have two other books to outline this way, and I haven’t even drafted them once yet. Let me know if you’re interested in hearing about my journey and if you want snippets of the practice scenes I write!
Also, be aware that I’m starting pantsers and outliners threads in my subscriber chat. Make sure to join in!
I know I'm a bit late, but please share practice scenes you write! I enjoyed the chapter you posted of Madeline's story, and I want to read more of your writing (: