How to Outline a Novel: A Real Outline, Filled In Chapter by Chapter

Published 25 September 2026 · 14 min read · Story Structure

To outline a novel, list your chapters and write three things for each one: what happens, what the reader learns, and the question that makes them turn the page. Nothing more. An outline that holds more than that (descriptions, dialogue, mood) is already a draft; an outline that holds less ("chapter 7: they argue") will be useless on the night you get stuck. Reedsy, Kindlepreneur and the template sites explain the theory of outlining and hand you a blank grid. This article hands you a full one: twenty-four chapters for an invented 80,000-word novel, with the word budget per act, the notes Dédale left on the holes, and how the same outline reads in three acts, five acts and Save the Cat.

What a novel outline is for (and what it is not for)

An outline answers one question, the one you will ask yourself at chapter 11 on a tired evening: "what happens now?" If the outline answers, you write. If it doesn't, you open a browser tab and you don't come back.

It is not there to freeze the novel. The outline you are about to read changed four times during the writing; chapter 15 did not exist in the first version. An outline is a map of what you think you know, to be updated as soon as the text teaches you something. That is the classic pantser objection, and it is a fair one: it gets its answer in plotter vs pantser: do outliners actually finish more novels?. Here, the working assumption is that you want one.

The novel in the example

To show a real outline, you need a real novel, so here is one, invented for the occasion.

Working title: "The Tides of Saint-Aulne". Genre: contemporary family-secret novel, 80,000 words. One-sentence pitch: Léa Vasseur, a stained-glass restorer in Lyon, returns to the Breton island of her childhood to settle her father's estate (he was the lighthouse keeper) and discovers he secretly sold the plot of land that protected the house from the sea. Dramatic question: Will Léa save the house, or understand why her father chose to let it go?

The characters, as they appear on their character sheets:

• Léa Vasseur, 34. Wants: to close the estate in two weeks and leave. Fears: becoming "the lighthouse girl" again. Flaw: decides for other people.
• Corentin Vasseur, 29, her brother, who stayed on the island. Wants: to sell and finally leave. Fears: that Léa takes their father's place.
• Hervé Kermabon, local developer, 58. Wants the land for a hotel. Not a villain: he grew up here and he is right about the erosion.
• Naïs Le Gall, 35, pilots the island ferry, Léa's childhood friend. She knows what the father did, and why.
• Yvon Vasseur, the father, dead before page one. Present through his notebooks.

Three plot lines run through the book: the main line (the house and the sale), the secondary line (Léa and Corentin), the inner line (Léa and the island, with Naïs at its center). You will find them in every chapter below; checking that none of them vanishes is exactly what the plotting grid does, and it reads like a table version of this outline.

How many words per act?

Before filling in chapters, you set the budget. For 80,000 words in three acts, the most common split gives roughly a quarter to act one, half to act two, a quarter to act three. That is not a law, it is a starting point that stops you from discovering at chapter 18 that you have 40,000 words left to resolve everything.

Twenty-four chapters averaging 3,300 words, then, with real variation: chapter 12 runs 1,800 words, chapter 21 runs 5,000. Chapter length follows from what the chapter has to do.

The outline, filled in chapter by chapter

Every entry uses the same template: what happens, what the reader learns, the end-of-chapter question. The point of view is Léa's throughout unless stated otherwise.

Act 1: the arrival (chapters 1 to 6)

Chapter 1. The ferry (3,000 words). Léa crosses to Saint-Aulne on Naïs's boat; Naïs barely speaks to her. The lighthouse house is locked, Corentin has not come to meet her. The reader learns: the father died eleven days ago, Léa had not visited in six years. Chapter ends: on the door, a calling card from the Kermabon firm.

Chapter 2. The inventory (3,400 words). Léa opens the house, finds her father's notebooks, meets Corentin at the harbor bar. A contained argument. The reader learns: Corentin wants to sell, fast; Léa wants to "do things properly". Chapter ends: Corentin lets slip that "the plot is already gone anyway".

Chapter 3. The land registry (3,200 words). Léa goes to the town hall. The north plot, the one between the house and the cliff, was sold to Kermabon two years ago. The reader learns: the father signed alone, without telling his children. Chapter ends: Léa decides to stay beyond the planned two weeks.

Chapter 4. Kermabon (3,300 words). Meeting the developer, on the land itself. He is not hostile; he shows her the erosion, he talks figures. The reader learns: the planned hotel includes a sea wall that would save the house too. Chapter ends: Kermabon offers to buy the house at a fair price. Léa refuses without thinking.

Chapter 5. The notebooks (3,500 words). Léa reads Yvon's notebooks at night. Handwriting that changes, tide readings, one crossed-out sentence. The reader learns: the father knew about the erosion for years, and had talked to someone about it: "N." Chapter ends: Léa understands that Naïs knows.

Chapter 6. The choice (3,600 words). Léa confronts Naïs on the ferry, out and back. Naïs refuses to talk "until you decide to stay". Corentin learns Léa turned down Kermabon's offer and slams the door. The reader learns: Léa can no longer leave without understanding. End of act 1: Léa files an appeal against the building permit. She has chosen the fight.

Act 2a: the investigation (chapters 7 to 12)

Chapter 7. The workshop (3,200 words). Léa sets up a makeshift workshop to restore the stained glass of the island chapel, at the mayor's request, and to have a reason to stay. The reader learns: Léa is very good at her job, and the island notices. Chapter ends: the mayor tells her Kermabon "isn't the problem".

Chapter 8. Corentin (3,000 words, Corentin's point of view). The brother from the inside: his debt, his half-paid boat, his need to leave. The reader learns: Corentin promised their father to say nothing to Léa. Chapter ends: he texts Kermabon: "She'll give in."

Chapter 9. The archives (3,400 words). In the municipal archives Léa finds a fifteen-year-old erosion report, commissioned by her father. The reader learns: the house was doomed back then; the sale was not a betrayal, it was a negotiation. Chapter ends: Naïs's name is on the report as a witness.

Chapter 10. The storm (3,800 words). A spring storm cuts the island off. Léa and Naïs stuck together at the harbor office. Naïs finally tells half the story: the father negotiated with Kermabon that the wall be built before the hotel. The reader learns: Kermabon has a written commitment nobody has seen. Chapter ends: Léa asks Naïs why she stayed on the island. Naïs doesn't answer.

Chapter 11. The document (3,100 words). Léa asks Kermabon for the document. He shows it: the commitment exists, but it is conditional on the sale of the house. The reader learns: the father had agreed to sell the house too. He died before signing. Chapter ends: Léa withdraws her appeal.

Chapter 12. The lull (1,800 words). A short chapter. Léa finishes the window. Corentin comes to help without being asked. An evening without conflict. The reader learns: both lines, the house and the brother, seem to be resolving. Chapter ends: a registered letter arrives from Lyon. The main line is calm; the inner line is about to break.

Act 2b: the reversal (chapters 13 to 18)

Chapter 13. Lyon (3,200 words). The letter: Léa's workshop partner in Lyon gives her formal notice to come back or sell her share. She has a week. The reader learns: the life Léa wanted to get back to is not waiting for her. Chapter ends: Léa signs the sale agreement with Kermabon. Midpoint: she believes she has solved the story. She has just lost it.

Chapter 14. The signature (3,400 words, Corentin's point of view). Corentin discovers Léa signed without him, when the house belongs to both of them. The reader learns: Léa did exactly what the father did, decide alone. Chapter ends: Corentin refuses to sign in turn. The sale is blocked by the one who wanted it.

Chapter 15. Naïs (3,300 words). Léa goes to Naïs for support. Naïs tells her the rest: she stayed on the island because of Yvon, who helped her buy the ferry, and because she waited for Léa to come back, for a long time. The reader learns: the inner line carries a debt too. Chapter ends: Naïs asks her not to leave. Léa doesn't answer.

Chapter 16. The erosion (3,600 words). A second storm. Part of the north plot collapses. Kermabon suspends the project: the wall would cost too much. The reader learns: no hotel, no wall; no wall, no house. Chapter ends: nobody is going to save the house.

Chapter 17. Rock bottom (2,800 words). Léa alone in the empty house. She rereads the last notebook. The crossed-out sentence from chapter 5, read in raking light: "Let her go." The reader learns: the father was not talking about the house. Chapter ends: Léa calls Lyon and sells her share.

Chapter 18. The harbor (3,700 words). Léa offers Corentin another deal: sell the house to Kermabon, on condition that he takes the wall back on, funded partly by the sale and by what Léa got for her share. Corentin accepts, on one condition: that Léa stays for the construction. The reader learns: the brother never wanted to leave; he wanted her to stay. End of act 2: Kermabon says no.

Act 3: the choice (chapters 19 to 24)

Chapter 19. The council (3,200 words). Léa takes the file to the town council: the wall can be public works if the island decides so. The reader learns: the island has been afraid of Kermabon for twenty years, and nobody has ever contradicted him. Chapter ends: the vote is postponed.

Chapter 20. The chapel (3,000 words, Naïs's point of view). The restored window is installed. The whole island is there. Naïs watches Léa and understands she has already decided. The reader learns: what the island sees in Léa is no longer "the lighthouse girl". Chapter ends: Kermabon comes to talk to Naïs, not to Léa.

Chapter 21. Kermabon, again (5,000 words). The longest chapter. Kermabon tells his version: Yvon asked him to drag out the negotiations so that Léa would be forced to come back. The wall, the hotel, the sale: the father accepted all of it so his daughter would come home at least once. The reader learns: the family secret was never the sale, it was the waiting. Chapter ends: Kermabon accepts the public wall, on condition that Léa leads the project.

Chapter 22. The vote (3,300 words). The council votes the wall through. Corentin speaks in public for the first time. The reader learns: Corentin will stay on the island by choice now, not by obligation. Chapter ends: the house is saved; Léa still hasn't said whether she is staying.

Chapter 23. The ferry, back (2,500 words). Léa on Naïs's boat, going the other way. Her suitcase is aboard. The reader learns, from what she looks at and doesn't, that she is leaving for good. Chapter ends: Naïs cuts the engine in the middle of the crossing.

Chapter 24. The plot (3,000 words). Six months later. The wall is under construction. Léa steps off the ferry with two crates of glass. The reader learns: she has opened a workshop on the island without selling the one in Lyon, which she handed to her partner. Ending: she walks across the north plot, now a public path, and enters the house without knocking.

What Dédale flagged on this outline

In the Sagoræ studio, Dédale is the structure coach. He reads the outline, not the prose, and he never rewrites it: he asks questions wherever the outline stops answering. Here are the four notes he left on version 2 of this outline, before the fixes you have just read.

Note 1, chapters 9 to 12: Corentin disappears. "Corentin is absent from chapters 9, 10 and 11. His last action (chapter 8) is a text to Kermabon: 'She'll give in.' The reader expects a consequence. Where is it?" The fix was to bring Corentin into chapter 12, helping without being asked, and to make his refusal in chapter 14 the direct consequence.

Note 2, chapter 13: the midpoint arrives without pressure. "Léa signs because a letter arrives. The letter is an outside accident. What did Léa herself do to end up here?" The corrected version makes the letter a consequence: Léa has ignored three calls from her partner since chapter 7. Three lines added to chapters 7, 9 and 11.

Note 3, chapter 17: the clue was never planted. "The crossed-out sentence reread in chapter 17 must exist in chapter 5. In the current version, chapter 5 mentions 'tide readings' only." That is what put the crossed-out sentence into chapter 5.

Note 4, chapters 19 to 22: act three resolves the main line twice. "The wall is accepted by Kermabon in chapter 21, then voted through in chapter 22. Which of the two is the real resolution?" The answer was to make Kermabon's agreement conditional (Léa must lead the project), so that the vote keeps its stakes.

None of these notes writes the novel. Each one points at a precise spot where the outline did not hold.

The same outline in three acts, five acts or Save the Cat

A chapter outline does not depend on which structure model you use. The models are ways of checking that the big beats land in the right place. Here is where the beats of "The Tides of Saint-Aulne" fall under three readings.

The three-act reading is the one used for the word budget. The five-act reading moves the summit to the middle and reads the whole second half as a fall: it suits novels where the central reversal is the real subject, which is the case here. The difference between the two, and how to choose, is laid out in three-act vs five-act structure. The Save the Cat reading adds intermediate beats (the "debate" before act two, "fun and games") and imposes percentage positions; it is described beat by beat, with word budgets, in the Save the Cat beat sheet for novels.

All three models agree on chapters 3, 6, 13, 17 and 24. If your outline holds those five points, the rest is adjustment.

How to fill in the template for your own novel

The template is the one you have just read. To fill it in, work in this order, which is not the order of the novel.

1. Write the dramatic question in one sentence. If it won't fit in one sentence, you have two novels, or not yet a novel.
2. Place the five points of agreement: inciting incident, end of act one, midpoint, rock bottom, resolution. Give each an approximate chapter number from the word budget.
3. Fill in the chapter endings before the contents. A chapter ending is a question or a door slamming. If you know how each chapter ends, you know what it has to contain.
4. Add the secondary lines, checking that none of them vanishes for more than three chapters in a row.
5. Reread the outline using only the "reader learns" column. It has to move forward on every line. If two consecutive chapters teach nothing new, one is missing or one is too many.

In the studio, this template exists as chapter cards linked to the outline: you fill in the three fields, drag chapters around, assign a word budget, and the statistics then compare what you wrote against what you planned. The outline exports, like the rest of the novel. And if this is your first book, the outline is only one step among others: they are all in how to write a novel.

Frequently asked questions

How do you outline a novel? List your chapters and, for each one, note what happens, what the reader learns, and the question that closes the chapter. Place the five big beats first (inciting incident, end of act one, midpoint, rock bottom, resolution), then fill in the chapters between them.

How many chapters should a novel outline have? For 80,000 words, 20 to 30 chapters is common, but the number follows from the average length you aim for. The example in this article has 24, ranging from 1,800 to 5,000 words.

Do you have to follow the outline exactly? No. The outline is a map you update whenever the text teaches you something. The example above changed four times during the writing, including one added chapter.

Does a detailed outline kill spontaneity? An outline that holds the dialogue and descriptions, yes. An outline that holds only what happens, what is learned and the closing question leaves all the room for writing the scene.

Which structure should I use, three acts, five acts or Save the Cat? All three agree on the same five points. Pick the one whose vocabulary helps you see your novel; the chapter outline stays the same.

If you want to fill in this template for your own novel and have Dédale read it, Sagoræ offers a free trial, no card required.

✒️ Read next: Plotter vs Pantser: Do Outliners Actually Finish More Novels? · Save the Cat Beat Sheet for Novels: The 15 Beats Scaled to 80,000 Words · How Long Should a Chapter Be? What Real Manuscripts Show

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