Types of Outlines

 

Types of Outlines

Snowflake Method

This isn't actually an outline. I've heard it described as such before, but it's really more of a general novel-building method. 
I include it here, though, because I think it's something that's someone who is making their outline now could use. 

The basic idea of the method is adding on to small pieces as you go. You start off with a one-sentence-synopsis of your story. 
Then the next step, you write a full synopsis of everything major that happens in your story, up to the end. 
Then you fill out a thing about your characters to help develop them. 
The steps go on up to  step 10. Step 10 to write your novel. 

This method was designed by author Randall Ingermanson, and you can see his post about his method (which is of course much more in depth than this blurb) here. 

My Index Card outline 

I admit I was mildly offended to find that the link to the subway outline (next section) mentioned the exact same method I use as a step in its process, as I thought I was totally originally in my "creation" of it. But, there's nothing new under the sun, so really I shouldn't have been. 

Anyways. This method is my all time favorite one, at least for my current high fantasy, and it's super simple, which is really nice. 
Basically, get a bunch of index cards, write the name of the scene or a one-line explanation of the scene at the stop, and write a description of the scene below that. I recommend using a pen, as pencil lead is likely to wear off. 

Once you've got a big ol' stack, find a nice, empty room and spread it out on the floor. You can now put your scenes in any order you want, and easily add or take away scenes. 
If you find a scene isn't working and remove it, but then later find a way for it to work, you can easily reorder the cards to work it back in. 

It's basically story boarding, but with words instead of pictures.

(I use regularly sized index cards for this as they give me enough room to explain the scene in a size that's easy for me to read but also aren't so big that I can't carry them around. However, larger or smaller ones could also work. It just depends on how you want it.)

NaNoWriMo's Subway Outline

I cannot find a good way to explain how this outlining works. But, basically, it's a board with different colors of strings connecting events in your story. But it isn't a board and it isn't string and it's organized.
Each "stop" of the "subway" is a different scene, and there's different colored "threads" that all are directing you to the same goal, but the colors can get a little sidetracked and go off doing their own thing while one thread continues on.

Yeah, I probably didn't explain that well at all. You should probably just read it for yourself: subway outline

I put this in this order because you could use all three of these things to prepare you for NaNoWriMo. Start with snowflake, then with index cards, then with the subway, if you wanted to. 
You could really do any mix of them. Or you could do none of them. Whatever you'd like. 

I hope this helps you in your preparation for NaNo.

                    -Edna Pellen