: Should I be able to 'feel' my outline? If I am writing a book, and my primary goal is creating a strong emotion in the reader, should I be able to 'feel' that emotion in the outline phase?

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Outlines mean different things for different people, and I would say it depends on how detailed your outline is.

If it is just A happens, then B, character realizes C, etc.., then no. You can break down the events of a story pretty easily without emotion.

To me, it's how these events unfold, and how they affect characters I've come to love that evokes emotion in me. Outlining is helpful to understand the structure of your story, but if it has enough detail to be heart-wrenching, it's probably less effective as an outline. I think outlines are best for analyzing if the progression of events makes sense, as opposed to the emotion they're supposed to invoke. Worry about writing emotion into the story itself.

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Yes, you should be able to 'feel' your outline.
I admit I don't really outline in writing, although I do have well defined characters and a problem in my head before I begin writing, and I do feel the emotions of my characters in scenes before I write them.
I think if your goal is to evoke emotions, you should really be outlining the emotional journey of your characters as part-and-parcel of the plot. The plot scenes should serve this emotional journey, if Jack and Jill are to fall in love, become sexual partners, get married, get pregnant, and you plan to kill one of them in a robbery or something: You should be not only plotting what happens in each chapter, but choosing your scenes to support the emotional journey, too. And their jobs, and the period and environment, etc. What is Jack's job that he might be killed in a robbery? A bank manager, perhaps? In what scene do they meet? Why are they single? How do they feel all along the way?
Those feelings should be detailed IN the outline, and by thinking about these feelings, you will feel them during the outline. You will feel them stronger when you write the scenes, but if you don't feel them at all during the outline, then they are likely implausible or inappropriate (e.g. forced) emotions.
If you outline the emotional journey along with the plot, it will help you pick resonating settings and plot points that emphasize and echo the emotional state. For example, after a first meeting, the emotional state should be intrigue, curiosity about this new person. A desire to explore (not necessarily sexually just yet), to get to know somebody better.
So, what is a good setting that suggests or encourages exploration? Can we put them in it, someplace they can walk about, that they haven't been before?
Or what is a good job task to suggest or encourage exploration? Maybe Jack or Jill (whomever you follow) can have that as part of their job to talk about, some successful work-related research or exploration.
Your story may not be a love story; that's fine. The point is, to evoke strong emotions in your readers, you must build up to them with an emotional journey. Simple sledge-hammers like their child dying in the first scene tend to fall flat, we don't know the characters very well, the result is too cliché, the manipulation too obvious. The emotions must have an arc, and that should be planned, along with the plot, characters, and setting that support the emotional arc. Then we DO know the characters, feel like they are real, so when you pull the ripcord on the big scene, we empathize and sympathize with them, we feel that emotion. If you outline the emotions, then you should feel them to a good extent in the outline, or they aren't working.

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The outline is simply said: Just a rough explanation, what the chapter/scene should achive. Personally, I use the outline to describe, what the chapter and the scenes should cover. It is the most basic part of the story, cause it just describes the key plot elements basically.

As example:
A rough outline for the finale would be:

xy is going into the dungeon and fights the dragon. Both die.

As you see: No emotion, no details, just the basic part of the chapter and what happens. The draft is the phase, where you start to pour details, emotion and action into your story, cause that is the part, where the actual story begins

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Personally, an outline is the bare bones gist of my story as originally conceived that I then, more or less, stick to as I write the story to stay on track. It lacks depth and emotion as I purposefully don't give it control of my story. But in my head I have whole worlds of ideas about the characters and the story line. As I write, the characters develop, the emotion develops and the story develops. My ideas about who the characters ARE and why they do the things they do changes and grows. The best advice I've ever seen on this is in Stephen King's ON WRITING.

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