Your first official goal for today will be to brainstorm a series of ten questions based on those notes.

Your goal here is to write down a list of fifty ideas, events, memories, or experiences from your life.

The Resolution: These are the last few scenes of your story, meant to show your readers the final effects of your Climax. Whether your protagonist succeeded or failed in their quest, here you’ll take a moment to say some final goodbyes and show what your story’s world will look like going forward. You may also lay the groundwork for sequels here.

Inspiration plays an important role in many stages of the writing process, but it’ll only be there if you invite it to the party first.

in my own writing I’ll often use just a single phrase or two to describe a scene at this early stage, later fleshing that phrase out as I get a better idea of how it’ll fit within my larger story.

The simple power of a well-built, cohesive outline can’t be understated.

every scene in your novel: they must either advance your plot or elaborate on something meaningful about your characters. If they don’t fulfill one of these roles, you'll either need to change them or cut them outright.

However—and this is a big however—don’t get too caught up by this step. You’re early in the outlining process, and we’ll be returning to your premise in later chapters anyway. Instead, this is your chance to flesh out your idea until it loosely fits the requirements above.

The Hook: This scene should occur right at the beginning of your story, preferably before any other scenes. It needs to introduce a unique aspect of your story that will intrigue readers.