In a previous post, “Evil Schemes”, I spoke on the importance of inspiration and supported something of a balance between that and planning. I am now writing a post on the benefit of outlining.
Outlining, yuck. Right? That has been my opinion since I learned about outlines. I would like to say right now; I haven’t actually changed my mind, per se. I have simply changed my view.
I have promoted and continue to promote planning. When inspiration doesn’t come… plan. Use logic. Planning is important in almost any aspect of life. Without planning the ability to get things done goes to…
With that in mind, outlining is a good thing. However, there are people who are better at it than others. There are those who find it a trial and a tribulation. See my hand raised? There are those who prefer to deal with their story as the inspiration comes and/or in a chronologically progressive manner. In essence, the story is unfolding as they go and they are learning about the story as they write it. This is how I feel about the writing process. I love to watch my story progress like a movie where I don’t know what’s going to happen until my characters come to the situation and make their decision. When I was writing stories for my own enjoyment, I made the mistake of trying to make my characters do what I wanted them to do. They worked with me for a little while, but in the end they basically told me to take a long walk of a short pier.
Something similar to this situation is what I want to address. Let’s say you are writing your story from front to back. What would happen if, after you have written multiple scenes or chapters, inspiration strikes for a scene further on, and it hits you… the way you wrote previous scenes makes the new scene illogical; it simply won’t work? If that happens you would have to go back and try to figure out how to rewrite previous aspects of your story. Worse, it would create a chain reaction, changing things from that point on.
Therefore, taking the main scenes you want, writing them out in chronological order, and filling in with the leading action, cause, and effect, can help you see where you need your story to go and what aspects you need to develop. It can also give you an insight into what personalities you need your characters to have. This is important because the personalities you give your characters will affect the choices they make and ultimately the way the story progresses. If the personalities fully develop themselves before you realize you needed them to have a different personalities… too late. They have already become who they are and you can’t change them now. If you try, your story and characters will come out artificial and forced. In other words, you will have a character you have to save for another story, and you will have to create a new character for the current story.
What made me, in particular, decide to outline, other than the fact that one of my mentors has been pushing me to outline from the start? When I said that I prefer to write chronologically you must keep in mind that for my first practice attempt at writing a novel, I was still young enough that I had a lot of free time. I was able to write in between school. I had plenty of time to enter that world and write it through, keeping everything I needed in my head.
I no longer have that luxury. Yes, it is a luxury. Now, I have maybe an hour a day, if everything works out well and I take time away from other important things. However, letting myself enter the world is hindered by all that has gone on in the day. I am still trying to get my brain to relax and I have to push myself into that world, and by the time I manage that I only get in a few minutes of writing.
So, I have been having to fill in the gaps with worldbuilding and letters from my characters introducing themselves to me, telling me about their pasts, dreams, fears, and cultures.
In these little bits of writing time where I can enter the world, I want to be able to make sure every moment is used to utmost efficiency. I have to make sure that I have my grid all laid out so all I have to do is fill in the blanks.
While outlining “The Holders of…” I found out about better places for character introductions and discovered plot holes before they are written out. Because I got a big picture view and made sure I saw the forest instead of just one tree, I was able to talk through some of these plot holes. This was with someone who is not much of a fantasy reader, but one who is good with the whys and wherefores of human interaction.
With this friend of mine, I explained the situation in five minutes tops and in five minutes tops she explained to me a helpful solution that involved very little adjustment of my original plot progression. In fact, it strengthened a plot point I had already decided upon. It make this pre-planed plot point look even more authentic.
So, you can see how making sure you have an outline can help you see the forest despite the trees. If you write straight through, front to back, getting all the details in it is like trying to build a model forest. You work hard, focusing on every detail of branch, bark, and leaf. Later you realized you have created pine trees when you had wanted to create a winter scene later on, with bare branches of deciduous trees as a focus. Oops. It is gut wrenching and heartbreaking to have to scrap page upon page of work that you poured your heart and spirit into. Let’s not do that more than we need to.
Do I like outlining? No. I still don’t. Am I good at outlining? To put it nicely… it stinks. However, I am able to make an overview that gets the point across to me and it might even be able to get the point across to other people even if it isn’t pretty or a good version of an outline. Maybe that was part of what I needed, to forget the aesthetic of wanting a good looking outline and simply going for functionality. Does it do the job? Yes. Good, then. Style is really not the point of an outline.
Make your outline with this in mind. Do you get a strong view of the main points of your story and how they interact? If you get that, good. Forget about beauty for now. Beauty will come later when you fill in the details of your story.
In summary: outlines – good. Take time to do it. It will save you time and effort in the long run. It will make the time when you can write easer. It will give you something productive to do when you can’t immerse yourself in the world you are trying to create. Use the tools you have at your disposal and use them in a way that works for you. Try a few different things. An outline gets your story started; gets it framed out. Everything else will follow. Let inspiration hit you and you can write a little in your main scenes. Working on the wow factor and getting yourself excited about those big scenes is a good thing and it is a good place to start, but do not go very far without making your outline, especially if life makes finding time difficult. When that is the case, inspiration is a luxury, a treasure, something you will not come across frequently. Once you have your outline, you get your worldbuilding going, and have some basics from your character letters, you can then get ready for inspiration to come easier. It will never be easy, just easier, and then, you can begin to enjoy the wonder.
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