Consider outlining your novel after you've written the first draft

Most discussions of outlining focus on doing so before you write your book.

Author and editor Kris Spisak has another suggestion for those who find outlining enjoyable (or at least valuable): do it after you’ve written your first draft.

First, though, you’ll write a single-sentence mission statement for your book.

Then, the point of creating an outline based on what you’ve actually written is to compare every scene to the mission statement.

Spisak explains what to do with scenes that don’t actually support the mission statement in her post for Writer’s Digest on post-first-draft outlines.

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• How authors can develop a road map for self-editing 

• Two approaches to editing and revising