You have discussed a lot about outlining. Can you tell me what it actually is? I have Googled a lot but none seems to give me the answer I require. I want to know how to outline and what outlining means.~~rida1smile

Outlining is planning your novel out. There's many different levels of it. For me, I have a very basic idea in my head when I start. I won't know the ending of it. Just different parts. Others will make scene by scene descriptions of their story before they even start.

I like to let my characters develop themselves mostly, but some writers will fill up a whole journal about a single character before they even start writing. Adelynann on one of her Periscope videos, talked about how she plots out her characters. On a graph she'll type the main characters names at the top. I can't explain how she does it because I know I'll describe it wrong, but I was blown away. But it kept them all neat and orderly. And by making these charts for characters, you're able to keep track of who needs more screen time and which characters fell off the grid. And AdelynAnn if I anything wrong about that, p

To outline you can use your head, paper, a computer system like Word or Excel, graph paper, ect... Really it is whatever works for you.

I'll write down the plot if it's too complicated for me to remember. And during edits, I've made a step by step outline of every thing that happened to make sure each piece of the story connected. In another outline, I wrote down events that took place in the last half of the book, so I could see where I needed to end up.

At the end of the day, outlining helps you stay organized. It makes rough drafts not be rough drafts. But if you want to let the story tell itself, you position your fingers on the keyboard and get ready for an amazing ride. Either way, it's writing, and doing one and not the either, doesn't make you any less creative.