Book Outline Template: How to Outline Your Novel Before You Write

There's a famous divide in writing communities between "plotters" and "pantsers" — those who outline obsessively before writing word one, and those who fly by the seat of their pants, discovering the story as they go. The debate gets heated, as if you have to pick a team.

Here's a more useful take: outlining isn't about constraint. It's about replacing one kind of uncertainty (where is this story going?) with a different kind (how exactly am I going to write this scene?). The second kind of uncertainty is productive. The first kind can cost you months.

This guide gives you the tools to outline at whatever level of detail works for you — from a loose structural scaffold to a chapter-by-chapter beat sheet — for both fiction and nonfiction.

Why Bother Outlining?

The case for some level of planning before you write:

It reveals structural problems before you've invested 40,000 words. The most common reason novels stall or get abandoned is a broken second act. An outline shows you the problem in twenty minutes. Writing your way to it costs months.

It speeds up your daily writing sessions. When you sit down knowing exactly what happens next, the blank page is much less intimidating. You're not generating story — you're writing a scene you've already thought through.

It helps you write a coherent ending. Satisfying endings are planted early. Knowing your ending before you write your opening means you can seed the right clues, themes, and character moments from page one.

That said — the outline is a tool, not a contract. Most authors deviate from their outlines as they write. Characters surprise you. A better idea presents itself. That's fine. The outline was never supposed to prevent discovery. It was supposed to give you a map so you're not lost when discovery happens.

The Three-Act Structure

The three-act structure is the backbone of most commercial storytelling — not because it's a rigid formula, but because it maps the way readers experience story emotionally.

Act One: Setup (roughly 25% of your book) Introduce your protagonist in their ordinary world. Establish what they want and what's at stake. The Act One climax is the inciting incident — the event that disrupts the ordinary world and forces the story into motion.

Act Two: Confrontation (roughly 50% of your book) This is where most writers struggle. Act Two is the longest act and the hardest to sustain. Break it into two halves:

• Act Two A: Your protagonist pursues their goal using the approach that feels natural to them. They make progress but also make mistakes. The midpoint is a major revelation or reversal that raises the stakes.
• Act Two B: Everything gets harder. The protagonist's old approach stops working. Things fall apart. The Act Two climax — the "dark night of the soul" — is the lowest point of the story.

Act Three: Resolution (roughly 25% of your book) Your protagonist finds a new approach — usually one that requires them to change in the way the story has been pointing toward. The climax is the final confrontation. The resolution shows the world after the conflict is resolved.

The Save the Cat Beat Sheet

Blake Snyder's Save the Cat beat sheet takes the three-act structure and breaks it into 15 specific story beats with rough page count targets (for a 110-page screenplay — multiply by roughly 3 for a 90,000-word novel).

The 15 beats:

1. Opening image — A snapshot of the protagonist's world before the story begins
2. Theme stated — A line (often from a secondary character) that states what the story is really about
3. Set-up — Establish the protagonist's ordinary world and their problem
4. Catalyst — The inciting incident that launches the story
5. Debate — The protagonist hesitates; do they really want to do this?
6. Break into Two — They commit to the adventure
7. B Story — A secondary storyline begins (often a relationship); this is where the theme is explored
8. Fun and Games — The "promise of the premise" — the part that makes readers pick up the book
9. Midpoint — A false victory or defeat that raises the stakes
10. Bad Guys Close In — The opposition gets stronger; cracks appear in the protagonist's team
11. All Is Lost — The worst moment; the protagonist loses everything
12. Dark Night of the Soul — Internal despair; the protagonist must find a new way
13. Break into Three — The solution arrives; the protagonist has a new plan
14. Finale — The climax; the protagonist executes the plan
15. Final Image — A mirror of the opening image, showing how much has changed

You don't need to hit every beat precisely — use it as a diagnostic tool. If your story feels saggy, check which beats are missing or out of order.

Chapter-by-Chapter Outlining

Once you have a macro structure (three acts or a beat sheet), fill it in at the chapter level. For each chapter, you need to know:

• What happens (the external events)
• What changes (the emotional or relational shift — every scene should change something)
• POV character (for multi-POV novels)
• Where it ends (ideally with a question, revelation, or escalation that pulls the reader into the next chapter)

Here's a simple scaffold for the first three chapters of a commercial fiction novel:

Chapter 1

• Open in scene (not backstory)
• Introduce protagonist and their voice
• Establish the ordinary world and what the protagonist wants
• Inciting incident arrives at the end of the chapter or early in Chapter 2
• End with a question that pulls into Chapter 2

Chapter 2

• Protagonist reacts to the inciting incident
• Introduce the stakes and complications
• Introduce a key secondary character or the antagonist
• End with the protagonist making a decision that commits them to the story

Chapter 3

• Protagonist acts on their decision
• First real obstacle or complication
• Deepen character through how they respond to pressure
• End with a reversal or revelation

For the rest of Act One, keep filling in until your protagonist crosses the threshold into Act Two.

Outlining Nonfiction

Nonfiction structure is more flexible than fiction structure but still needs a spine.

The standard nonfiction outline:

1. Introduction — State the problem you're solving, why the reader should trust you, what they'll gain from this book, and a brief roadmap of what's coming
2. Part/Chapter 1 — Establish the foundation; define the key concept or problem in depth
3. Middle chapters — Each chapter tackles one component of your argument or one step of your system. One idea per chapter, one take-away per chapter.
4. Final chapter or conclusion — Synthesize everything; what the reader should do next; the "after" vision
5. Resources/Appendix (if applicable) — Templates, further reading, worksheets

For a prescriptive nonfiction book (how-to, self-help, business), the outline is your proof of concept: can you actually fill in each chapter with specific, useful content? If a chapter is thin, you'll know now rather than 30,000 words in.

Build Your Story Bible First

Before you dive into a chapter-by-chapter outline, spend time in your story bible. A story bible captures everything that's true about your story world: character backstories, relationships, world-building rules, timeline, key locations. Outlining without this foundation means you'll keep stopping to invent details as you go.

PublisherMate™'s Story Bible gives you structured templates for characters, world-building, plot, and research — all linked to your manuscript in one workspace. When you're building your outline, you can reference your characters' motivations and your world's rules without switching tabs or digging through notes.

The Manuscript Intelligence suite also includes an AI outline builder that can help you generate a rough chapter structure from your premise and then refine it — useful for when you know your story but can't quite see the shape of it yet.

Tips for Flexible Outlining

A few things that will make your outline actually useful rather than oppressive:

Leave room for discovery. Note beats and turning points, but don't script every line of dialogue. The more tightly you constrain the outline, the harder it is to write into.

Distinguish between what happens and why it matters. "The protagonist learns her sister is alive" is a plot event. "The protagonist realizes she's been building her life around a lie" is a story event. Both should be in your outline.

Update your outline as you write. When you deviate from the plan, update the outline to reflect the new direction. This keeps you from writing toward a destination that no longer exists.

Outline forward, write forward. When you're stuck in the middle of a draft, often the solution is to outline the next 5–10 chapters rather than go back and revise what you have.

Start Outlining in PublisherMate™

Ready to build your outline? PublisherMate™ is the workspace where outlining, story bible building, and manuscript writing all live together — so you're never copying notes from a separate doc or losing your character details in a folder of Word files.

Try PublisherMate™ free → — set up your project, build your story bible, and start your outline in the same workspace where you'll write the book.