Why guys never stop and ask for directions

Never underestimate a good outlineWriting fiction, like driving, is much easier if you actually know where you’re going—it's even better if you know how you’re going to get there.

Which is why I always write from a skeletal outline. (I know, you’re rolling your eyes and grousing about how outlining is tedious, how outlining kills the creative process, how it turns writing from a wistful pastime into actual work. To which I say, boo hoo––put on your big boy pants and get over it).

It may just be me, but it seems that if you read between the whines, most people hate outlining because…well…because it’s hard work. Its creative output done up front, not done extemporaneously. On deadline, rather than…whenever…

And before you start thinking that I’m obsessively anal, (is obsessively spelled with three of four S’s? Where’s my dictionary? I’d grab it, but then I’d have to wash my hands again...) my outlines are typically nothing more than a beginning and an ending. Point A to point B. That’s it. As I write I’ll create pages of scene notes completely out of order, but the important thing for me is, I always know how it’s going to end, even though by the time I get there things might change.

But, when I don’t follow my own map—when I wander off on some other tangent––I end up at a dead end. And on Book #2, I didn’t just wander off the path; I went four-wheeling with a case of Lucky Lager and a loaded shotgun. I knew I was getting lost, but kept writing just to see where I might end up, challenging myself to figure out a way back. And guess what? I couldn’t. Not without writing a 650-page epic with a very confusing detour in the middle. So I put the gears in reverse, hacked 90 pages, and started again.

It wasn’t a complete waste. I did a mountain of research for those 90 pages that’s finding a home in the 10 pages I wrote yesterday.

And if you’re wondering, yes, I always stop and ask for directions. Joyriding is fun, but not when you’re on deadline.

How ‘bout you? Outlines? Evil incarnate or a writer’s best friend?

Comments

[Maureen]

Outlines are awesome. I love writing outlines. At the outline stage, everything is possible. Sometimes as I'm going along, I modify the outline to accomodate a new idea. So my outlines are stretchy. Like fat pants.

On a different subject: When you reach the last quarter of a novel, do you ever start suddenly writing in slow motion? Sort of like one of those dreams when you're trying to run but you're stuck in molasses?

[jamie]

Yep. I grind to a halt at the last 10,000 words. Mark Childress wrote a great essay on the Fear of Finishing. I'm sure it's on the net somewhere...

[PS]

Oooh--I like the fat pants analogy! LOL!

I do tend to know my starting point and destination...I also tend to know a few waypoints (whether they're destinations or events or people the protag will encounter)...but that's about it. And I do write them down (before I forget!), but that's probably as close to an outline as I get.

When I actually get around to finishing one of these babies, I'll let you know if that works for me.

[Kennedy]

I limit myself to extremely thin outlines: a single line of text per chapter. The text just lists key scenes, leaving me free to be pretty creative within each chapter...

...but I don't even start these outlines until I've bounced the story idea loosely around in my head for a year or more.

Ultimately, I may cut, reorder, or add scenes, but this approach generally keeps me on track.

[Maureen]

The Fear of Finishing essay is in the Workshop in a Book anthology Squaw Valley Community of Writers put out last year. He read it to us during the 06 Squaw. I love that guy. Anyways, I don't have a fear of finishing. I don't know. Maybe I do. I'll finish today just to prove that I ain't scared.

[CharlesP]

I'm a bad person to comment, as I've never finished the bloody book. I've had several halting starts, but ended up cutting it all and never getting back into that story again. Which is probably an indicator that I should outline, but then again when I've tried even a basic outline of "this is where I'm starting, this is my ending point, and here are a couple stops along the way" I've not done the best at follow through.

I think, as with most things writing related, this is very dependent upon the writer and their personality. Some people, with a more "craftsman" type personality, probably do better with detailed scene by scene outlines to start off, and then crafting the words into a story onto that skeleton. Others are more carvers, having to put up a huge slab of rock without any plan and then go back and remove the stuff that isn't the actual story.b If done well I think it can work either way, but you've got to know yourself and how you work (or don't as the case may be).

I think you're probably right that the "average" writer would be best served with an outline that reads like a elevator pitch for their story. Nothing too complex, but enough to point the car in the right direction (beyond "out of the driveway"). But, there are enough people who want the GPS unit that you can't discount the detailed outline, and enough people who practice "zen driving" (Dirk Gently/Douglas Adams reference) and get where they need to be even if it wasn't where they thought they were going.

Of course MY problem is that I've got my car up on blocks in my garage and I'm detailing the interior, and retuning the engine for the 368th time instead of actually sitting behind the wheel and giving it a little gas.

(how many metaphor's did I mix up there?)

[jamie]

I don't think an outline needs to be much.

Boy meets girl.
They fall in love.
Their parents disapprove.
They die in the end.

That kind of thing. But when the story is only "Boy meets girl," I think the author is in for a lot of dead-ends, rewrites and subsequent drafts.

Charles! I know you have it in you to get to that finish line--don't give up. (And yeah, them's a lot o' metaphors).

[Mike F.]

Fear of Finishing is my middle name. Like Charles I have unfinished work. Not outlining is probably a big reason why. I tend to wander, then I can't get back to where I was headed.

[ello]

I love outlines! I loved doing them! But that said, that back tattoo is incredibly painful to look at!

[Sandra Cormier]

I'm a stretchy pants, ride on the waves, occasionally glance at the road map, put on the blindfolds, spin around and play pin the tail on the donkey kind of writer.

Plot? What plot?

[Robert Farley]

Without an outline, I'd be lost to hopelessly lost, probably writing the same thing over and over again. My readers would think they'd lost their place. My hero would have blue eyes in chapter one, green eyes in chapter 20. I'd be lost to hopelessly lost.

I generally build my outline as I go, starting with a bare skeleton, adding to it as the pieces fall into place, giving myself notes and reminders of information included and excluded so that I don't repeat it later or leave it out altogether.

This process also results in a pretty good chapter synopsis for those agents and publishers who want one.

And talk about anal, in my first book, because it dealt with insect breeding vectors, I wrote an hourly spreadsheet for the week of the story, putting all the characters in their places and times, as well as the charting the bug progress. This had the added advantage of allowing me to catch an instance where one character had to be on opposite sides of Oahu at just about the same time.

Of course, that part got cut in the editing process, but it made for an impressively colorful chart.

[Jaye Wells]

Outlining is important for me, but it's also a challenge. I guess my nature is more of a seat-of-the-pants approach, but I've learned heading in without a road map usually means I forget to take the left turn at Albuquerque.

[David I]

Can't do outlines. Don't know the characters and what they will and won't do until I've met them on the page. Often have only the vaguest notion what the book is "about" when I start.

That said, once I'm into the book I start seeing scenes down nthe road, and at least the nature of the climax. So I have an outline of sorts by the time I finish.

But if before beginning a book I said, "Okay--I'm going to write an outline," I'd just sit there. I might as well try to dematerialize or grow wings.

And I don't slow down towards the end. I speed up, because the options have become so tightly constrained.

I'll just get my hat and sneak out the back now.

[Paul Phillips]

I used to believe that outlines were a silly waste of time. Why do outlines when you could be writing your book. That's the way I felt until I submitted my first manuscript to my editor for an evaluation. Somewhere in the middle she trashed it and said it sounded like I was making it up as I went along. (I was). No direction, no forethought, no planning. So I licked my wounds, swallowed my pride and re-wrote the offending passages, after I figured out the direction of the story. Now that I have started book number two, it is much easier to write because I have an outline to follow. I learnt the hard way that you need a least a little forethought and planning to write something that you can feel good about. To me this second book is easier to write because I know that I will not have to go back and rewrite half of it.

Paul

[jamie]

A few years back, Joe Konrath was cool enough to post one of his outlines on his site for downloading. It was a very detailed, chapter-by-chapter affair that stretched out to 20+ pages. I don't nearly outline to that depth. My outlines are really more of a flexible page of notes. But, I don't start writing until I have an ending in mind. But whatever works...as long as it works. Or as Dr. Ruth used to say (is she still alive?) "if it feels goot, do eeet."