Outlining Your Novel Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises for Planning Your Best Book (Helping Writers Become Authors)

To say this book is useful doesn’t do it enough justice. KM Weiland instruction is very helpful, expert and clear. She does not get lost in academic literary references that often lose sight of first level intent, but keeps the focus on learning, and progressing in the technique and skill of outlining your novel. It is a like attending a writers master course from the comfort of your home. I also adore the fact that Ms Weiland offers a very thorough weekly podcast, newsletter and invites email questions that addresses all issues regarding your writing ✍🏻 kudos KM Weiland! A lifeline in the writers journey.

I am a newly retired software engineer who is trying to become a novelist (science fiction). The parallels between software and writing a novel are closer than you might think. Both require a fair amount of planning and research before the actual programming/writing takes place. I am by nature and experience a plotter; with software, it is possible to "throw stuff against the wall" repeatedly and end up with something that is not awful. Possible but not likely. Others may be able to take a similar approach (pantsing) to writing a novel but I am not one of them. There are many books written about the architectural and design patterns that guide the software developer. I have read quite a few of them. I have learned from those books and have become a better software developer. All of this is prologue to the fact that this book, Outlining your Novel Workbook, is filled with extremely useful patterns and techniques for writing. I have used the techniques presented in this book to create the setup for a NaNoWriMo novel that I completed during November, 2015; I am struggling through the "writing is hard" revision process right now for that novel. The structure is sound; it is the writing that needs a lot of help. I also am just finishing up the outline for a second novel using this same set of techniques, this time with Scribner templates. Templates are goodness. Writing a novel is a monumental task. Scary at best. Breaking that task down into smaller tasks reduces the terror. Breaking those sub-tasks down even further produces a set of tasks that individually are difficult but no where near impossible. How do you break down the tasks? Buy this book and its companion to find out.

I love K.M. Weiland’s blog, Helping Writers Become Authors, with its helpful articles on the craft of fiction. I also loved her book, Dreamlander. So it’s reasonable that I would buy her Outlining Your Novel Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises for Planning Your Best Book, the companion to her manual, Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success. I am a person who gets into trouble when I try to write by the seat of my pants. I really need to plan out my story pretty much from beginning to end—not that I won’t follow any brilliant idea that comes to me spontaneously, but just so that my plot doesn’t die from the dreaded lack of destination. Without an outline, my characters just wander around aimlessly until they hit a dead end. In the past, I’ve used The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters by Christopher Vogler with its archtypes and twelve stages to outline my novels, but it’s only taken me so far. Since NaNoWriMo of November 2014, I’ve been struggling to get my (hopefully) first publishable novel, The Unicornologist, into shape. It was missing something, but I couldn’t figure out what. I decided to take it through the steps in Weiland’s book after the fact to figure out where the holes in the manuscript were. She suggests exercises that help you brainstorm in specific ways. For example: Ask yourself every “what if” question that pops to mind regarding your story. Some of your ideas will be ridiculous; most will probably never make it into your book. But don’t censor yourself. By allowing yourself to write down every idea, no matter how crazy, you may come up with story-transforming gems. Weiland uses illustrations from her own books and others’ to explain what makes plot compelling. She asks questions that make you dig deeper into your characters: Ґ What Lie does your character believe that is keeping him from the Thing He Needs while prompting him to believe he must gain the Thing He Wants? Ґ How can your protagonist demonstrate determination? Ґ How can your protagonist show kindness to others? I have used questionnaires to build dossiers on my characters, but I don’t really like questionnaires, because so many of the questions seem immaterial to my story. (My main character’s favorite color really doesn’t come into play in my mystical fantasy.) Weiland includes “interview” questions, and many of them don’t help me. However, the questions like the ones quoted above make me think about the characters’ personalities and visualize their actions and help me figure out how to portray them. Weiland has authors focus on six important aspects of their novels: premise, scenes, character backstories and interviews, setting (including world building, if necessary), story elements, and structure. Every writer has to find his own approach to outlining (or else do without, as Stephen King and many other successful storytellers have). Rather than reinvent the wheel, as it were, most of us try out multiple approaches and keep the aspects that work for our projects. Reading through Outlining Your Novel Workbook in tandem with revising my work-in-progress did help me find holes in my story, and add detail and emotional impact to my scenes. I will use many parts of it for outlining my future stories, but I will probably skip over the parts that don’t apply to my story or resonate with me.

This book is a great guide to making your work better. For me I always felt like I wasn't quite hitting the nail on the head when I finished my novel and when I found this book it showed me the nitty gritty of what I was missing. The valuable info that readers may never know but that you the writer must know in order to write a gripping story is very important. Ms Weilands probing questions into the characters forces you to think about all you never considered. If you have 'itchy writing fingers syndrome' as I like to call it, i.e. when you want to write you just goddamm want to write especially when your characters are talking to you so loudly you just find it impossible to think of anything else other than what they are showing you. STOP and go through this book. It helps you to slow it down by the questions that are pose to you and you see well heck I didn't think of that and how it could improve the story. Long and short of it I'd definitely recommend!!! I bought all of her books on writing, they are affordable and worth it because you improve your craft. Oh and check out her website it helped me a lot.

This is a book and workbook in one. It helped me to see the importance of an outline even though I enjoyed writing the first 300 pages pantser style. because at that point the story kinda stalled. I really need to get more into my antagonist! Anyway, this was short and sweet, great ideas without the boring beat you over the head instruction I've seen in other books.

Great author easy to follow instructions

If you have no idea what to do to write, this is an alright starter workbook, I guess. It’s the kind of thing I could have made entirely on my own though. I’ve encountered nothing in this workbook that makes it essential or even all that helpful in terms of fleshing out my story/novel concepts or plot beats. It just kind of is. I worked through a few early pages with fidelity in hopes that I would find it more helpful than I was guessing it would be when I first received it and actually got to look at it, but it was just basic stuff that I had already long figured out on my writing journey. Conversations with trusted writers and friends have been infinitely more helpful to my process, and they didn’t cost a dime. It’s not a bad workbook per se, but I don’t know how this would be of use to someone who knows anything about writing already going into their process of writing.

I've always been a pantser until working on a novel that wasn't coming together for me. I decided to step back and give outlining a try. This workbook is clear, concise, and to the point without unnecessary fluff. I highly recommend this workbook for anyone who wants to learn outlining.

Another great contribution to my working day. Thaks Ms. Weiland!

K M Weiland is an excellent guide to novel writing, especially for a first novel. When she says she is passionate about writing you can see that in her podcasts for the last 15 years. I have all her craft books. For this workbook, I would recommend listening to the audiobook of Outlining Your Novel first. The workbook has links to extra information on KM Weiland's website.

As a group of like minded people, I thought it pertinent to start a brand new style of book club. A 'How to' book club. We have a wide variety of writers and genres at different levels. Each attendee gained many idea's and understanding to take away from this book and the opportunity to use the work book was invaluable. This book also reinforced what we have been teaching for over six years now at the RWR Rainforest Writing Retreat in Australia, and writer now have an excellent resource to revisit if they ever get stuck. I do have to say, I love the 'Ask the Authors' section and checklists at the end of each chapter. I highly recommend this tool for the aspiring writer.

I also have the book Outlining Your Novel, and together they were key to get me to move from pantsing to outlining. Although I do believe the workbook is great as a stand-alone product, buying them together means you get that extra bit out of the workbook. I have always resisted the idea of outlining, mostly as I thought it took away from my creativity, but also because I believed that it slowed me down. Since reading Weiland's book I realized that spending time on the outline of the novel actually speeds me up. It is almost like a first draft is written before I even start. And the workbook has all the key aspects of the book pulled out so I no longer need to go to my tabbed up book. I just open my Kindle and start working with a fresh notebook for each new story. Well worth the low price point!

I'm a 38-year-old aspiring writer working on my first fiction novel and am finding this workbook, along with it's mating book "Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success," indispensably useful. Other outlining books may provide equal instruction but I'm doubtful they do so in as warm and encouraging a manner as K.M. does in hers. She provides firm and clear instruction while consistently maintaining a respect for the artful side of the craft. The workbook guides the reader through dozens of exercises useful for liberating the ideas and concepts required to assemble a sound story structure. Her use of examples from film and literature, including her own work, is invaluable for grounding the concepts she covers in each chapter. As I grope my way through this mammoth endeavour, it feels as though I have a personal writing coach when I use these books. There are 4 publications in the series (2 books and 2 workbooks) and I highly recommend all of them. They're very reasonably priced and money well spent.