The Writer's Handbook - Write & Publish Like Industry Professionals

OUTLINE & BEAT SHEET

So for example, for my 50k word project Into the Light: at 25% of the way into the story (at 12,500 words) I need to be at the final stage of Act I (The End of the Beginning), at 50% (25,000 words), I need to be at the Midpoint of Act II and at 75% (37,500 words) I need to be writing the last stage of Act II (Crisis). Between 80% to 95% of the way through Act III the (Climax) needs to be happening. The last 5% (2,500 words) of the book need to wrap up on the story's Resolution.

Here are screen grabs of the full beat sheet for Into the Light; feel free to use the template for yourself if you find it useful.

Now for those of you who have read Into the Light, you will notice there are some subplots that didn't happen that were listed (Khadger being imprisoned by Jaina) and other things that happened that weren't listed (Khadgar and Idira love affair). This means that your beat sheet isn't iron-clad, it's fluid, it's meant to be a guide -- it gets you focussed on the main beats of the story and where you need to be when. As long as the main story follows its path, you are free to develop the sub-plots to your heart's content.

The main takeaway from this exercise is to get the big picture nailed down, to check if your story has what it takes to stay filled with tension and pace all they way to a clear resolution at the end. It's a great way to work out the kinks in your plot without the big commit of writing it out only to hit an unforeseen wall at 26k words.

Since you are going to be populating your beat sheet before you write the story, there is a good chance you will get some pretty intriguing ideas to add into the story along the way as you write or even while still in the outlining stages but you can just add those into your nifty outline, you don't have to go back and redo your beat sheet (unless you want to make major changes to the overall plot, then yes, best to start over). What's great about getting all this straight beforehand is you free up a ton of creative space in your head to focus on breathing life into your story. You can relax into your writing with the only boundaries being sticking to the pacing you have set out and meeting your milestones as planned.

Once you have your beat sheet prepared and working, then you can prep your outline. I'm super dorky so I use a spreadsheet. Just one big one.  Here's the outline for Into the Light, my most basic version of an outline:

Daughter of Azeroth's outline was more detailed since I had to work around a lot of Warcraft lore and make sure timings matched up between the world events and Idira's life events:

And then this is The Lost Valor of Love complete with editorial notes from my editor (by the way she loved the outline, it made it really easy for both of us to easily find and focus on issues in the manuscript, so if you want a happy editor, throw them your outline along with your manuscript, they will love you for it)

Feel free to use any of the templates above or chop and change to your preference, the great thing about an outline is when you are knee deep in your writing, it's easy to get side-tracked, and end up going down a blind-alley only to hit a brick wall. With the map of the story laid out you can write with confidence and focus on your characters telling the story instead of having to figure out what's happening as you go along. If you get lost, just check the outline!

That being said, not everyone is a planner and this might look like a whole lot of work to do. I get that. You have to find your own style. This is just one way of approaching the work of writing a book. However if you do decide to plan and not write by the seat of your pants, at the very least use the beats of the beat sheet, it's a fool-proof way to lay out your book, check for plot holes (aka plot bunnies) and ensure you will have plenty of pace. I promise you won't regret it and will feel the difference right away in the progression of your story.