Writing a fantasy novel: Outlines

Step 2

Alright, you have been inspired, thought of the most brilliant idea. Now what.
Well it is time to go to work, and create an outline for your story. An outline, you say, what is an outline? (Or you could be saying, of course you have to make an outline, silly) Either way I shall tell everyone about an outline.
An outline is basically a blueprint for the plot of your book. Before you start writing, it is an excellent idea to put down on paper the plot points, main characters, geography, etc. (I'll be detailing how to create characters and worldbuilding in later steps.)
You may even find it useful to do a chapter by chapter outline, describing the basic happenings in each chapter. I find that useful if I'm creating a world from scratch.

Now for an example:

I'll use the idea from step one; the magical bird that grants wishes.

The Outline:

Main Characters:
Don Weagle; Sara Smythe; Tim Finn
These three people are roommates, sharing a small apartments.
Geographic Location:
London, England

A brief plot outline:
Don, Sara and Tim are all friends, with minimum wage jobs, who share an apartment to save money.
Sara inherits a strange parrot from an aunt, and decides to keep the bird. Soon the luck of the three friends begins to improve, and they find even their casual wishes are coming true. Don notices the luck changed with the arrival of the bird, and wonders if he is the cause. They put this theory to the test, and discover their pet is magical. They try to find out the whys of this amazing creature, and unintentionally attract the attention of sinister people. They now have to protect their pet, themselves and the world from the dark magic.

That is a (very) basic outline. From this you can develop a chapter by chapter outline, character outlines, geographic outlines, and even an outline for your research.

That's step 2. Step 3 will be character development and how to do research.