This is the first outline that is more than just broad strokes and general contours. This is the meat of the outlines. A scene could take place in one chapter or it could span ten chapters. You will know a scene when you see one. Scene outlines are critical. You can get by with a loose idea of what will happen overall and in each part, but you cannot get by without a detailed scene outline. Without planning the scene in detail, you might find your thoughts jumbled. You might forget parts of the story and write yourself into a corner. I have done this before. I have started writing a scene without knowing exactly where it will end up and I found my characters in an intractable situation where they needed some deus ex machina to save them. I had a deus ex machina in mind, but then when I got to the part where I needed it, I realized that the deus ex machina could not come because I had not prepped for it or because I inadvertently foreclosed the possibility of it happening earlier in the scene. Do not let this happen to you!
----- Deus ex machina -----
If you aren’t familiar with deus ex machina, then you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina Basically, deus ex machina is when your characters are facing an impossible predicament and something completely unanticipated and out-of-the-blue happens that resolves everything. Deus ex machina is bad when it is arbitrary. You should prep your readers so that the resolution seems at least somewhat plausible. The resolution should still, however, be a surprise. It is fun for readers, though, when they can guess at what the surprise will be in advance. Then, curiosity for the outcome compels them to read on.
If your characters get into a sticky situation, then you need to know ahead of time that they will get into it and how they will get out of it. That way, you can plant the seed of their escape early on in the scene. Then, later, the reader will think you are a genius when the characters are hopelessly trapped and that seed you planted so long ago all of a sudden blooms into a deus ex machina tree.
----- Drawing the Scene -----
With scene outlines, I do more than bulleted or numbered lists. I draw maps. I sketch out imagery. You might be thinking, "I'm a writer, not an artist. That's not for me." You would be wrong. I am no artist. Trust me. The purpose of the maps and sketches is not to publish them. The purpose is to keep the imagery straight in your own head. This is one of those scenarios where a picture is worth a thousand words. You can write about an underground labyrinth for a long time, but the writing will never be as good as a map. The map does not have to be good. Just draw it up. Let it guide you. Keep yourself from getting confused. This is particularly important when you can't write an entire scene in one sitting. For me, I almost never have time to do a scene in one sitting. Therefore, I have to draw maps so that I can come back to it later without getting lost. I also like to draw character sketches. They are abysmally bad, but I think they help me visualize and describe the characters. It is easy to forget about details when you don't draw your characters. When you draw them, it forces you to think about aspects of their body or clothing that you might overlook otherwise.
