Outlines

How much outlining do you do before you create your narrative? What's in place, what do you leave for later? Any structures you prefer?

Most of my outlining is in the form of arc creation in my head. Once I have idea, I chock it up to what I've written and other ideas I've decided to go with, if it checks out I just have to wait till I get to it to write out the details and stuff (along with the linkage) else I just discard it.

In writing out my outlines for my Pokemon anime remix series, I kept the following rules in mind:

--Would this make sense in my own version of the Pokeworld, which is very different than the show we all know and love?
--Can I feasibly rewrite this into character development?
--Can I feasibly rewrite this into a step for the goals Misty and Brock (and other party members) want to achieve?
--Can this episode contribute to building the world, and expand on what we know and see from the games and the show?
--Can I take Team Rocket out, and still have some kind of a plot? (the answer I found in many of the episodes, not just in Johto, but the other game-based arcs, was "yes"
--Would the story suffer if this episode was taken out?

If the episode and its plot answered "no" to any of these questions (or "yes' to the Team Rocket question), it was either rewritten to suit my imagined Pokeworld, or removed entirely

For a first outline, I basically lay out a bullet list of the major events over time that need to happen and what character relationships need to change. At this stage, everything that happens in between those points can be boiled down to slice of life + random sidequests.

For later iterations of the outline, which tend to be two or three, some leading-in or fan-out events are inserted before or after the various major events, to account for building them up or for spreading / showcasing the consequences, and selections of quotes or specific interactions are inserted at points where "interesting" stuff should happen to keep a sense of narrative flow.

With outlines, we start with just the basic "one sentence" plot, and figure out what else needs to go in there that the characters need to do. With those ideas in mind, we go through a basic summary of each chapter, since we know that there's going to be at least twelve chapters per book. For those twelve chapters, we make sure that the plot progresses on without slowing down too much, leaving enough time for the big battle. Then, once we're ready to write, we take each chapter and break it down scene-by-scene, making sure that each character is accounted for that needs to be there. These are still basic summaries without a lot of detail in them.

We never used to outline anything. Just take the basic plot and go for it. It wasn't until we got stuck on what happened next and one chapter turned into two that I figured some extra control was needed. It's helped out a lot and takes some pressure off while actually writing.