More on outlining

When people are outlining, they tend to think in terms of the plot, purely. There is a lot more to a novel than plot, however.

Especially in the opening stages, you will be introducing characters, and establishing what sort of people they are. You'll also be describing settings and creating the mood for the story. All of that would be left out in an outline that focuses on the plot mechanics and nothing else.

So if you are phasing out a story, remember to include plenty of phases where apparently trivial things allow the important characters to show the reader what sort of person they are. These could be little incidents that don't do anything to move the plot forwards, or even have anything at all to do with the main action - going to buy a newspaper and remembering to say "Thank you" to the person in the newsagents, for example, or the main character spending half an hour listening to a friend complain about her problematic love-life, even though we know this is an inconvenience.

Setting and atmosphere are also important and need to be established. If you're following an ABC outline, you might not give the reader enough information to help them picture what is going on, or feel the appropriate sort of emotion. You'll also, probably, feel dissatisfied with your writing, because you'll know it is missing something. And, of course, every word you write describing a setting is a word less you have to write to reach 50,000 ...

Here's an example, from the book I think of as the best story every written - Nostromo, by Joseph Conrad. It is page 69 of the story, for no particularly good reason:

She had watched her carriage roll away with the three guests from the north. She smiled. Their three arms went up simultaneously to their three hats. Captain Mitchell, the fourth, in attendance, had already begun a pompous discourse. Then she lingered. She lingered, approaching her face to the clusters of flowers here and there as if to give time to her thoughts to catch up with her slow footsteps along the straight vista of the corridor.

A fringed Indian hammock from Aroa, gay with coloured featherwork, had been slung judiciously in a corner that caught the early sun; for the mornings are cool in Sulaco. The cluster of flor de noche buena blazed in great masses before the open glass doors of the reception rools. A big green parrot, brilliant like an emerald in a cage that flashed like gold, screamed out ferociously, "Vive Costaguana!" then called twice mellifluously, "Leonarda! Leonarda! in imitation of Mrs. Gould's voice, and suddenly took refuge in immobility and silence. Mrs. Gould reached the end of the gallery and put her head through the door of her husband's room.

Charles Gould, with one foot on a low wooden stool, was already straping his spurs. He wanted to hurry back to the mine. Mrs. Gould, without coming in, glanced about the room. One tall, broad bookcase, with glass doors, was full of books; but in the other, without shelves, and lined with red baize, were arranged firearms: winchester carbines, revolvers, a couple of shotguns, and even two pairs of double-barrlled holster pistols. Between them, hung by itself, upon a strip of scarlet velvet, hung an old cavalry sabre, once the property of Don Enrique Gould, the hero of the Occidental Province, presented by Don Jose Avellanos, the hereditary friend of the family.

That's about 300 words, so if you're going in for very detailed outlining, it is one phase. In an outline, it would be described as "Emily Gould walks through the house to her husband's room" and, in plot terms IT IS ENTIRELY POINTLESS, but in other respects, it is a very important page:

• It helps establish Emily's character, particularly in contrast to her husband's - after all, he should be there to wave goodbye to his important guests.
• It includes several ironic or symbolic tropes such as the parrot shrieking "Vive Costaguana!" a bit of senseless patriotism which will be replicated in human form later on, and the guns in the cabinet are suggestive of the danger that hangs over the Gould's.

So don't forget to include space in your outlines for character building, atmosphere and symbolism. After all, if it is just going to be about the clever plot, a reader would be as well sticking with the outline.