Step 1: Develop a Concrete Idea of What Your Article Will be About
Start by having a concrete idea of what your article will be about; I’m not talking about a “topic” here, but a concrete idea of what your article will be about; this will make it easy to form your outline.
For example “freelance writing” is a topic, while “I want to write an holistic article that will help people to quit their jobs to be a freelance writer” is a concrete idea.
You don’t need to have a title, or a headline, before developing your outline but you need to be clear about exactly what your article will be about.
Once you’ve decided on a concrete idea for your article, you can write it down or keep it in mind; what matters is that you have something that guides your outline, and eventually your article, so you don’t end up beating around the bush.
Step 2: Come Up With a Rough List of Points You’ll Write About
complete article usually involves several points, subheadings, bullets, etc. that pass across your message.
In most cases, you’ll find that you don’t have all of these points available before you start writing but it is essential to have an ample number of them available; this way, you can easily avoid “writer’s block” when you start writing.
Step 3: If Possible, Include a Little Description With Your Points to Make it Easy to Write Them
Sometimes, you won’t be able to get to work on the article you outlined immediately; so, even if your head is buzzing with ideas at the moment of writing the outline, and you’re so excited that you feel you’ll burst if you don’t write, you might come to your outline tomorrow and have no idea why you wrote a particular point or what a particular point means.
If you take a look at the points in my example, you’ll probably find it difficult to understand what some of the points mean; I have a clear idea behind why I wrote those points, but you’re probably wondering “how does most of these points relate to quitting your job to be a freelance writer?”. I’m very sure I might start to feel that way if I come back to the outline a month later.
To avoid confusion, and to make it easy to flesh out my article, I prefer to explain my points a bit if I won’t be able to write the article immediately; this way, it’s easy to flesh out a full article no matter when I get back to the points.
In this case, the basic outline I prepared earlier will develop to be something like this:
Step 4: Review Your Points
Once you complete step 3, your outline is formed; at this stage, you want to ensure that your points are coherent, and that nothing is missing or excessive in your outline.
You’ll have to review your outline and do some “addition and subtraction” to ensure points are added and removed, before you proceed with writing your article.
Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Research
Can you see how easy I outlined a potential article on “quitting your job as a freelance writer”?
Writing this particular article you’re reading about how to write an outline (at 1,300+ words), including the outline example I prepared with it, took me about 40 minutes total minus editing time.
Truth be told, it won’t come this easy for you unless you’re an experienced writer. The idea for the outline and this article came easy to me because I’m very knowledgeable about the subject of freelance writing.
It’s not uncommon to find yourself staring at the blank screen when trying to write your outline, it happens to me too, and in this case you just have to keep researching what has been written on the subject to help form your own ideas.
Use Google, Wikipedia, Q&A sites, etc. to see what has been written, to get new ideas and to better develop ideas already forming in your mind.
Also, try looking for studies and research that back up the points in your article and include them .
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