First Draft Outline

Many aspiring and experienced novelists churn out hundreds of pages (and waste valuable time) before they have a workable first draft of a story. In essence, they go on a blind treasure hunt, searching for a story. The single biggest flaw in this digging-blindly-for-story method of writing is that it doesn't take into account that you might start digging for your story a hundred miles in the wrong direction! If you haven't done all the necessary preparation to begin, you have no idea where to start, and, once you do, whether or not there really is a story beneath the soil you're unearthing. You may dig endlessly and never find it…or you may find it quite a ways down the pike from where you started, and nothing that has come before has any or much consequence and worth.

Award-winning author Karen S. Wiesner is your host for this tutorial. Many of you know Karen as the author of First Draft in 30 Days, From First Draft to Finished Novel {A Writer's Guide to Cohesive Story Building}, and Writing the Fiction Series: The Complete Guide for Novels and Novellas, all available from Writer's Digest Books.

In this new tutorial, she'll be talking about many of the things detailed in First Draft in 30 Days. Specifically, she'll take you through the process of working in stages as well as writing an outline step by step. Once you have a “first-draft" outline, Karen will go over a revolutionary way of setting goals and getting ahead in your career, which are the hallmarks of productivity.

Karen's revolutionary system is both versatile and customizable, capable of being modified to fit any writer's approach and style, and can be used for every single genre of fiction, no matter how short or long. This 59-minute tutorial will give authors everything they need to create an outline,one so complete it actually qualifies as the first draft of your book.

In this 59-minute tutorial video, you'll learn six aspects of productivity:

1. The writing treasure hunt: Digging blindly versus outlining
2. Writing in stages
3. Pre-writing
4. Scene-by-scene outlining
5. Revising the outline
6. Goal setting and getting ahead

Say goodbye to writing and rewriting endlessly with no results. By starting your work with an outline, you know where to start digging, whether there truly is a story down there, and you know exactly which direction to go with it. Everything you plot from start to finish is good and worthwhile. Authors who use an outline will spend more time writing a story than searching for one.