Follow Your Characters, Not Your Outline

By Michelle Barker

You're Not the Boss of Me

If you comb craft books and blog posts for advice on how to write a novel, chances are you’ll hear a lot of people counsel you to make an outline. Not everyone works well to an outline, but for the planners among us, sitting down and thinking about how you’re going to fill 350 or so pages before you start writing sounds like a pretty good idea.

However, if you think an outline will guarantee a straight and uncomplicated shot from beginning to end, think again. Outlines can get derailed for reasons that might have nothing to do with you and your plans. Or, not directly. 

Let’s unpack this.

Start with characters, not plot points

First, let me say, there’s no right or wrong way to plan out a novel. There’s the way that works for you, and that might look very different from one person to the next. It might also vary significantly from one project to the next. 

That said, there is one thing that’s bound to make your life easier, and that is to start with characters rather than plot points.

True confession: I find it pretty hard to follow this advice. I generally don’t know my characters very well until I put them in situations and see what they do. That’s where we get into the part of outlining that has nothing do with you or your plans. 

If you’re lucky, your characters will come to life on the page. But then, watch out. They’re likely to start bossing you around and telling you where you can stick your outline because they have their own ideas about how this story will unfold. 

Where you might run into trouble (okay, me: where I run into trouble) is when you stand strong with your ironclad outline and say, No, you people are going where I put you whether you like it or not. Writing is the one time in our lives where we get to play God. Who doesn’t love that?

However, if you dig in your heels with your outline, one of two things might happen.

Thing One

Your characters won’t listen to you, and you’ll find your scenes veering off in directions you hadn’t intended. Your most common feedback will be: this story doesn’t line up. What you’ve ended up with doesn’t match the story you started telling.

Thing Two

You won’t listen to your characters, and you’ll find the story isn’t quite landing. Your most common feedback will be: this plot doesn’t make sense for the characters you’ve created. They would never do what you’re getting them to do.

Who’s really the boss?

Hint: it’s not you. Or not to the extent you’d hoped. 

Your characters are, or should be, the ones in the driver’s seat. This is their story. You’ve created them to be living breathing people, and you’ve probably noticed that in real life, living breathing people don’t necessarily behave the way you want them to. They don’t always (or ever) do what they’re told. They can’t be persuaded to listen. They have their own ideas and opinions, and they will go wherever they feel like going. 

While this might create chaos for your outline, you should still rejoice if this happens. It means you’ve created something authentic and real. Strong characterization is at the heart of all great writing. We read, at least in part, to connect, and to experience life through another pair of eyes, but that only works when that version of life feels believable. If your characters are cardboard cutouts, they will be easy to control but not very convincing to your readers.

How does this play out in a manuscript?

What this means is that you have to know your characters before you impose an outline on them. If you can imagine sitting them down and having a conversation with them, it might go something like this:

Author: All right, Mrs. X, I want to write a story about you.

Mrs. X: Go ahead. I’m a criminal mastermind with three kids and a police officer for a husband. Buy me a drink.

You chat, you take notes, and you realize that based on who Mrs. X is, this is going to be a heist novel with a twist. What’s the twist? Ask Mrs. X. She’ll tell you. Or better yet, she’ll show you. Throw her into a scene and see what she does. 

If you know Mrs. X well enough, by the time she’s chaperoning her daughter’s school field trip to the art museum and chatting up the security guard, it will all make perfect sense. Anyone who’s met her will believe in this scene, given her questionable family background and tendency to, well, stretch the truth. It will be the right plot for Mrs. X. It should be. It’s her story, after all. 

Advice from Story Genius

Lisa Cron strongly recommends starting a novel by exploring the main character’s core misbelief, which shapes their unique way of looking at the world. A story is powered by the main character’s internal conflict—their struggles with a flawed worldview. Cron suggests that the external plot points (our beloved outline) should consist of events that will force the protagonist to change. 

In other words, who your protagonist is will dictate the kind of story you’re going to tell about them. We don’t just need to know what they’re going to do. We also (and primarily) need to know why they do it.

In Conclusion

If the concept of a misbelief ties you up in knots, don’t fret. The takeaway from all of this is to listen to your characters, follow them, rather than forcing them to follow you. Get to know them and let them tell you what they’re planning rather than the other way around.

PS. You can get to know your characters better with our handy character questionnaires:

• Backstory
• Relationship Arcs
• Voice and Expression
• Strengths and Flaws
• Psychology and Motivation
• Minor Character Questionnaire

Michelle Barker is an award-winning author and poet. She is the co-author of two craft books: Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling and Story Skeleton: The Classics. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in literary reviews worldwide. She has published three YA novels (one fantasy and two historical fiction), a historical picture book, and a chapbook of poetry. Michelle holds a BA in English literature (UBC) and an MFA in creative writing (UBC). Many of the writers she’s worked with have gone on to win publishing contracts and honours for their work. Michelle lives and writes in Vancouver, Canada.