Some chapters are a paragraph, some are three or four. When I neared the end of my first book last year, I spend about a month re-outlining the last 6 chapters to make sure everything that needed to be tied up/addressed could be worked seemlessly into the narrative. Feedback from my crit group so far is the effort worked. It certainly helped when I sat down to write those chapters last fall (especially helpful since nearly six months passed between outline and actual writing…)

I know some writers hate outlines, saying it kills the creative process. To me, outlines are fluid things. I use them until they aren’t helpful, then I scrap them or revise. I’m always looking to discover something new during the actual writing. If it’s good, I’ve update the outlines as needed. If it’s really good, I’ll revise past chapters (or at least make notes to do so). If it’s not good, I’ll just hit delete and rewrite that section again.

I don’t get that detailed in the chapter outlines. They cover simply who’s in the chapter, and what happens in the chapter (and why). If I’ve thought of a particular line of dialogue that I like, it goes in, but I don’t get terribly dialogue-specific. I often throw in reference notes to other chapters just so I can keep track of things (i.e., the villain who shows up in chapter 5 is the shadowy figure I mentioned in chapter 2).

Once I get into writing the chapters, I don’t necessarily stick to the outline verbatim, but I’ve found the outline helpful in figuring out how changes will affect the novel as a whole. If I suddenly think of something very different that I want to do midway through the novel, for example, the outline gives me an idea of whether or not the change can be inserted easily into the existing structure, or if I need to commit to rewriting a lot of the outline (and the novel).