If I have a particularly complicated article to write then I may do a brief outline consisting mainly of headers, mostly just to determine a suitable order to follow.

Sometimes, the outline is shorter and in my head, but the process is still the same. I just prefer to have a roadmap to structure my writing with.

Longer non-fiction articles, travel pieces, interviews, yest.

Short articles, web content — no. I can write the piece in the time it takes to write the outline.

Blog posts — I might make a list of topics if I’m on the road, but I don’t pre-blog. When I sit down to write, I write.

I “write in my head” quite a bit, but sometimes it’s detrimental to write it down before I’m ready to actually write it.

Most of the writing I do is free flow, especially the blog posts. I want to just let the words go and then edit. Ditto with my fiction writing, although with both I generally have a beginning, middle, and end in mind. With nonfiction articles and my book, I generally have a loose outline or headings structure to what I am doing.

With a nonfiction proposal you are forced to do an extensive outline anyway and after I did that, I jotted down key words or phrases about ideas I wanted to cover in a chapter before I started writing just so my thinking process wasn’t cramped by structure.

ANd like many others here, I now do almost all of my organizing and composing on the computer. It took my husband years to convince me to stop writing everything longhand first and now I am hooked.

Good question, Deb!

Everyone should have this habit, IMHO. Especially if you want to write a novel someday.

Blog posts are spontaneous. I try to keep a calendar for my pro-blog, but other blog posts are not outlined.

I don’t outline my blog posts though.

I have considered doing an outline, but I think it would depend on the type of piece I am doing. I do not do outlines for the most part, unless I am including interviews. If anything, I will write then return to it a day later and add/edit as I wish. I would resort to an outline as a plan B if I am having trouble putting something in but can’t figure out where.

This is my first time on your site. Came from emoms.

Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
http://grammology.com

How could you forget something if you drew up an outline for it first? Sorry, couldn’t resist

Anyway, outlines for sure. And in longhand. Sometimes instead of outlines I write what I like to call “skeletons” – one or two sentence paragraphs that sound horrible.

I used to be able to write and organize in one step, but now most of my writing needs to be so dense that this is near impossible for me.

But I guess if I were writing in conversational tone then I wouldn’t really need an outline.

Although I also do what RLD does and leave blanks–especially for the lede–and come back when I know more about what I’m writing about.

Other than that, I carry a notebook with me and scribble out ideas, but I never fully flesh them out until I’m in front of my computer.

I do, however, strictly outline a series of communications. So, for example, if I’m doing three direct mail letters to the same audience, I’m very clear, in advance, what they are each going to say. Likewise, if I were going to have a daily blog, I’m sure I’d have a topical outline for the week/month to give my communications direction.

Occasionally the outline winds up having nothing to do with the final document.

Other times, I start out working on an article outline and part of it seems more suited to be a blog post…so I cut that part out, stick it at the top of my document so I don’t lose it, and keep working.