Outlining Tip: Don't Use Dialogue

via GIPHY

This isn't a hard "rule", more like an observation. If you're outlining your story, and using dialogue quotes to capture the essence of nearly every scene, you may not actually have a proper understanding of the scenes. 

Now, if you're just trying to record that perfect line of dialogue in the moment, sure, put it in your outline so you don't forget it. But if you're writing dialogue in your outline that reduces down to bland statements of exposition, then lookout: Your scenes may lack conflict, and you should revisit them.

If the essence of your scene in the outline is introducing two characters, Marvin and Gepetto, where one of them congratulates the other, "Gepetto! It's Marvin! From the Institute! Congratulations on the success of your anti-matter time travel machine!", then you're focused on the wrong things. The point of the scene is not to make the reader aware of the names of Marvin and Gepetto, nor is it to make the reader aware of anti-matter time travel, nor of Marvin's employer, the Institute.

The purpose of the scene is to communicate wants and conflicts. What do Marvin and Gepetto want? Do they want opposing things? The same thing? Is this a negotiation? Or are they each preparing the battlefield for inevitable conflict? Is this in fact a first strike? 

The essence of the scene above should be a demonstration of how Marvin wants, say, to get in good with Gepetto, in hopes of getting a job working on anti-matter time travel, while Gepetto pretends not to remember Marvin, as a way of getting back at Marvin for not getting Gepetto a job interview last year at the Institute. Communicate the same exposition through what really matters: The conflicts.

Also, why are you naming a character "Gepetto"? Terrible name!