One of the keys to creating a book where all the chapters have a point and the book closes up all of the loose ends is outlining where you’re going with each chapter. While this may seem an odious task, there are some key things to remember:
1. Nothing is set in stone (unless you’re carving your chapter outline into stone, in which case, perhaps writing is not your best artistic activity)
2. Doing this will provide you a framework for your story that you can reference when you inevitably want to tie events to something that was brought up earlier in the book…i.e., you get to avoid plot holes.
I’m offering up an example using my prologue. For my novel, the story is told through the POV of two characters: Catherine and William Johnson. In addition, because the book takes place in two different places most of the time, I’m including the month and year in each chapter heading. And so my outline for the prologue looks like this (feel free to read my prologue in yesterday’s post and call me out if something doesn’t match):
| Part | Date | POV Character | Goal(s) |
| Prologue | October 1887 | William |
|
