As of 13 August 2026, AI can write a novel outline.

What to actually do

1. Do it yourself

   The route this page recommends

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. 1. Open a document and write the premise, genre, intended audience, setting, approximate length and the ending you currently want.
   2. 2. Add the main character's goal, fear, flaw and desired change, then list the supporting characters, required scenes and things you do not want.
   3. 3. Paste the completed brief into a chatbot followed by the copyable prompt above.
   4. 4. Read the returned central plot and chapter sequence against your original brief, deleting any character, event or tone that does not belong.
   5. 5. Check the chapter order by writing down what causes each major event and confirm that every turning point follows from a character decision or consequence.
   6. 6. Ask the chatbot to revise only the flagged problems and unresolved choices, then compare the new continuity table with the character motivations in your document.
   7. 7. Copy the approved chapter outline into your writing document and add your own scene ideas, research notes and decisions before drafting.

   Prompt

   Create a detailed novel outline from the brief below.
   
   Premise: [one or two paragraphs]
   Genre and subgenre: [for example, crime thriller or contemporary romance]
   Target audience: [adult, young adult or middle grade]
   Tone and comparable feel: [describe the intended reading experience without asking you to imitate a living author]
   Approximate length: [word count or number of chapters]
   Setting: [place, period and any important rules]
   Main character: [who they are, what they want and what they fear]
   Key characters: [names, roles and relationships]
   Ideas or scenes that must appear: [list them]
   Things I do not want: [list them]
   
   Return:
   1. A one-paragraph central premise.
   2. The protagonist's external goal, internal need, main flaw and change over the story.
   3. The main opposing force and why it can resist the protagonist.
   4. A beginning, middle and ending, including the inciting incident, first major turning point, midpoint, crisis and climax.
   5. A chapter-by-chapter outline. For each chapter, give the point-of-view character, setting, immediate goal, conflict, important change and closing hook.
   6. The main subplot and how it intersects with the central plot.
   7. A continuity table listing each major character's motivation, relationships and state at the end of each act.
   
   Make every event follow from an earlier decision or consequence. Do not invent preferences, backstory or required scenes that conflict with my brief. Flag any unresolved choice or plot problem under a separate heading called QUESTIONS FOR THE WRITER. Keep the outline specific enough to draft from, but do not write the novel itself.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.