You can’t write a good story without establishing the outline. This helps you, as the writer, to understand the big picture. An outline is a roadmap for your book project. An outline helps you on your writing journey. For example, when I read the book ‘Favorite Beaches in Florida,’ the overall topic is “best beaches to visit in the state of Florida” and the target reader is people wanting to visit Florida for vacation.
►►►Establish your Outline!
This vacation topic is narrow enough to be a great book and it has a defined audience that would be interested in reading the information. That’s important when you are creating your outline. If you begin brainstorming and it looks like your book is going to be 5,000 pages, you probably have a problem with your overall topic. Rethink your topic.
Once you have a workable book topic selected, you can brainstorm a few general areas that might be covered in the book. In the case of the vacation book, broad topics include subjects like beaches with the best sand, beaches with the best activities, and beaches with the best restaurants. After you’ve brainstormed a multitude of topics, you can start grouping them into sections. Underneath these big “section” topics, you can start devising more narrow topics, to form your section or chapter headings.
An outline can be as detailed as you want it to be. Create subheads for each chapter, and sub topics for the subheads. (You may do this for the subheads or keep the story flowing in the chapters, and remembering to unify each chapter, to define your story.) You may choose to have a great level of detail – for your subheads and sub topics. In some situations it may make sense. Remember your outline will assist you in completing your masterpiece.