The Importance of Outlining to Do Good Writing
It comes as no surprise to mention that good writing is hard to come by. We must do a lot of pre-planning and then outlining before our manuscript can be well-written. This is the case for both fiction and nonfiction alike.
Writing skills are even more critical to personal productivity than they ever have been. Many writers write poorly. This can be avoided if writers outline their work before they start writing.
Poor writing undermines productivity in many ways, frustrating us with unreadable books, baffling potential publishers of our books.
The best writing is done in several distinct phases, including an initial phase of mapping the terrain and a second phase of translating that map into actual prose.
In order to achieve this, we need to formulate a rough plan for the entire piece before we put pen to paper. If you try to write without a plan, you will face an enormous challenge, and at some point, you will have to back track.
Why Does Outlining Matter?
So, why does outlining matter? Well, here is a psychological reason why.
It can be difficult to plan and write at the same time because the task of writing is very demanding of what’s called your working memory. Working memory is the mental space where information is held and processed in your brain. It allows you to perform higher-order tasks such as reasoning and learning.
In the context of writing, it is this process that allows you to manipulate words into sentences and paragraphs. But your working memory has limited resources. It can only hold and process so much information.
According to Professor Ronald Kellogg, if you can do most of your planning by creating an outline first, you can devote more effort to translating your ideas into text when you compose an actual draft.
Steps of Outlining
There are three main steps to outlining. Each of these are necessary in order to outline the most effective manuscript.
- Brainstorm
- Categorize
- Outline. Then you should arrive and rearrange the groupings in various combinations. In the end, try to find a logical order for the groupings. This can then serve as an outline.
By taking these steps, you will be able to write more effectively. It is best to outline for all kinds of writing. Here’s how.
If you are writing fiction, you can outline your themes, subthemes, and plot twists. You can also outline your book blurb and outline your character sketches.
Once you get writing, you can outline your chapters. You can figure out want your characters to accomplish in each chapter. Then when you start writing, you can know where you are going.
An outline is like a road map. It outlines where you will be going with your story. So, it is essential for you take the time to outline your story.
If you are writing nonfiction, outlining is also important. You can then follow the three-prong approach to outlining above.
We all deserve to write effective and well-written manuscripts. Nothing signals professionalism more than when we write well-crafted manuscripts. You can do this more readily by outlining your work first.
All the Best!
Irene S. Roth
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