How to Use Skeleton Outlines to Write Faster

A fellow writer mentioned client projects sometimes took longer than they hoped, so they wanted to learn to write faster in order to avoid this. While there are plenty of ways you can increase your writing speed, one tip I gave them was to use "skeleton outlines."

I worked through the beginning stages of of a skeleton outline while they watched to show how quick the process could be. Today I'd like to share the resulting example so you, too, can give this technique a try.

Let's take a look at what skeleton outlines are, then we'll explore how they can help you get through writing projects faster.

What Are Skeleton Outlines?

A skeleton outline is a high-level breakdown of your content. In other words, it's the "bare bones" framework you'll use as a guide to later write the "meat" of your work.

For instance, think about a nonfiction book's table of contents.

The TOC might list the book's sections, chapter titles, and then it might even include major sub-sections or topics covered in each chapter. This works similarly to a skeleton outline for a new writing project in that it breaks down the content into smaller parts.

Skeleton outlines can be used for any kind of writing. For example, I use skeleton outlines for press releases, white papers, blog posts, case studies, video scripts, podcast episodes, web copy, and even fiction.

With fiction, The Snowflake Method would be another similar approach in that you start small and build outward as you flesh out your writing.

How Can Skeleton Outlines Help You Write Faster?

Skeleton outlines give you an overview of what you'll write before you draft the content itself. This can make the writing process faster in several ways.

For example:

• You'll know exactly what research you need to conduct, so you don't waste time gathering unnecessary information.
• You can shuffle ideas around before you fully commit, therefore minimizing rewrites for the sake of maintaining your content's flow.
• When you have a skeleton outline breaking things down into smaller bits, you don't have to write in a linear fashion. For example, you can hop around between sections or tackle the easiest sections first to give you a motivational boost.

Once you have the initial skeleton outline, you can start fleshing out the rest of your content.

For me, that involves several passes where I build up each section in layers. While that sounds slow, those passes are quick to get through -- a minute or two for the first, and up to maybe five minutes for the last before I turn that into a full draft. For you, it might mean going from skeleton outline to full draft in one shot, using your outline as a simple road map.

Fleshing Out a Skeleton Outline

Let's look at an example of a skeleton outline for a blog post, and then see how I might flesh things out in a second pass.

In this first example, you'll see the only actual content would be the post title and sub-headings. In this first pass, you're simply deciding what you want the content structure to look like.

After that, I put in placeholder text for body copy, intros, transitions, and lists to give me that skeletal structure -- a frame I can flesh out.

Here's what a bare-bones skeleton outline might look like:

In this next example you'll see a fleshed out version of the same post's outline.

You'll notice some notes, or points I'd want to make in the post, were added in the first sub-section.

I also listed the five tips I'd want to cover both as a short-form list for the "scanners" reading the blog, and then I transferred those tips to the sub-headings below where each can be covered in more detail.

In this case, I went a step further by adding notes under those tip sub-headings (well, I did one of them for the sake of the example, but normally I would do the same for all). You could do that in this step or in another pass-through depending on what's more efficient for you.

From the example above, you could move into your first full draft. Or you might choose to add another pass-through if it's a research-heavy (or media-heavy) post.

In that case, after you've noted the key points you want to make, you can find supporting data, charts, illustrations, or whatever else you might need before fleshing out the writing itself any further.

That's all there is to it.

Skeleton outlines are a simple tool, and they should help you write faster by making sure you never feel "stuck" in the first place.

What's great about skeleton outlines is they never leave you staring at a blank page wondering what comes next. In other words, you know what topics you're covering. You know what points you want to make before you write, and you know where you want to make them. You know how everything ties together. And, as a result, skeleton outlines can help you drastically improve your writing speed.

This post was originally published on November 16, 2016 and has since been updated.