![The template open in Strokes: a banner picture of a row of tall townhouses along a canal at dusk, every window lit, above the title “Chapter outline: [Book title]”.](/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fhero-light.0280a584.webp&w=3840&q=75)
![The template open in Strokes: a banner picture of a row of tall townhouses along a canal at dusk, every window lit, above the title “Chapter outline: [Book title]”.](/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fhero-dark.7b14f04c.webp&w=3840&q=75)
When to use it
- Planning a novel chapter by chapter before you draft
- Tracking POV, setting, word count and status across a long draft
- Reverse outlining a finished draft before you revise it
- Writing chapter summaries for a synopsis, an editor or a co-writer
- Keeping a book with several narrators balanced
How to use this template
- Fill in the tracker first
Give every chapter a row before you write a single block. A working title of three or four words is enough. It only has to tell you which chapter is which. Fill in the POV column even if you have one narrator. In a book with two or three, it shows at a glance when one voice disappears for six chapters.
For the Words column, divide your target length by the number of chapters: an 85,000-word novel in 30 chapters comes to about 2,800 words each. The guide to chapter length by genre has the usual ranges for yours.
- Give each chapter a goal, a conflict and an outcome
The three fields adapt the scene structure in Dwight V. Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer (1965): a character pursues a goal against opposition until the scene ends in what he called a disaster. The test works at chapter scale too. If you cannot say what your POV character wants in this chapter, the chapter is probably moving furniture. Outcomes are rarely a clean yes. The later shorthand of "yes, but" (they get it at a cost) and "no, and" (they fail and things get worse) keeps the next chapter necessary.
- Write what changes, then the closing hook
What changes is the line that earns the chapter its place. Write it as a before and an after. The closing hook is the last beat on the page, the question the reader carries into the next chapter. It does not have to be a cliffhanger. A quiet line that turns the chapter on its head pulls just as hard.
- Mark the turning points
Use the story position line to note which chapters carry the inciting incident, the midpoint, the low point and the climax. In a 30-chapter book the midpoint should land somewhere around chapter 15. If your tracker puts it at 22, the first half is probably carrying setup the reader does not need yet.
Chapter outline example
Here is the chapter block for an invented mystery. Each line is short on purpose: an outline you can read in a minute is one you will actually reread before you sit down to draft.
Chapter 7: Low Water
- POV: Mara Quinn
- Setting: The harbor office at Gull Point, Thursday after closing, in a storm
- Story position: Early act two; her first real lead
- Goal: Get the ferry log for the night her brother vanished before the office clears its archive on Monday.
- Conflict: The only way in is through Jess, the harbor master's daughter and Mara's oldest friend, who is working late and trusts her.
- Outcome: Yes, but. Mara gets the log, the page for that night has been cut out, and Jess sees her take it.
Scenes: (1) Mara talks her way in with a story about her brother's insurance claim. (2) Jess is called down to the dock; Mara searches the cabinets and finds the log. (3) The cut page, and Jess back in the doorway.
What changes: Before, Mara only suspects the accident report is a lie. After, she knows someone in the harbor office is hiding that night, and she has lost her one ally there.
Closing hook: Jess does not shout. She says, "You're the second person this week to ask about that book."
Notes: Show the brass key on Jess's lanyard; it pays off in chapter 19. Check that low tide falls after 10 p.m.
The difference between a working outline and a decorative one is specificity. A vague line feels like progress while you type it and tells you nothing three months later, when you open the file to write chapter 7.
Lines you can write from
- Goal: get the ferry log before Monday's archive clear-out
- Conflict: the only way in is through a friend who trusts her
- What changes: she loses her one ally in the harbor office
- Hook: someone else asked for the same book this week
Lines that only look done
- Goal: Mara investigates
- Conflict: tension rises
- What changes: things get complicated
- Hook: cliffhanger
How detailed a chapter outline should be
Enough to start writing tomorrow, and no more. A chapter outline has three useful depths, and one book can use all of them: full blocks for the tangled middle, a row and a summary for the chapters you can already see.
| Depth | What you write | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| DepthTracker only | What you writeThe tracker, plus the Summary line for each chapter | Good forDiscovery drafts, short novels, books you expect to change |
| DepthChapter block | What you writeGoal, conflict, outcome, what changes, closing hook | Good forMost novels, mysteries, books with several narrators |
| DepthScene by scene | What you writeThe beats of every scene inside the block | Good forTightly plotted thrillers, chapters you are stuck on |
Plotters and pantsers argue about outlining, but the real difference is timing. A plotter fills in the blocks before drafting. A pantser writes first and fills them in afterward, which is the reverse outline below. When a chapter needs more room than the block gives it, plan its scenes with the scene outline template. For the methods that sit above this level, from three-act structure to the snowflake method, see how to outline a novel.
Reverse outlining a finished draft
A reverse outline is an outline of the draft you actually wrote, made after the fact. Writing teachers use it for essays, with a note beside each paragraph on what it says and what it does for the whole. In a novel the unit is the chapter. Read the draft one chapter at a time and fill in the table at the end of the template from the page, not from memory and not from your original plan.
Mark every chapter keep, cut, merge or move before you change a word of prose. Restructuring is cheap in a table and expensive in a manuscript. Keep the draft as it was before you start cutting: in Strokes, version history saves a version on demand, and restoring it takes one click.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a chapter outline and a scene outline?
A chapter outline plans the whole book one chapter at a time: who narrates, what the chapter is for and how it ends. A scene outline zooms in on a single scene: its goal, its turning point and the reaction that follows. Many writers keep a chapter outline for the book and outline scenes only for the chapters they are about to draft.
How many chapters should my novel have?
Divide your target length by a typical chapter length for your genre. The guide to chapter length has a table of the usual ranges. Treat the number as a check, not a goal: a chapter ends where something has changed.
Can I use this as a chapter summary template?
Yes. For summaries of a finished draft, fill in the tracker and write the Summary line for each chapter from the What changes and Outcome lines. Those summaries are also the raw material for a synopsis.
Do I need to fill in every field for every chapter?
No. Fill in the tracker for the whole book, then write full blocks for the chapters you are about to draft or the ones that are giving you trouble. An empty field is information too: a chapter with no goal is one to look at hard.
