To Outline or Not
Back to talking about writing....
Outlining is a hotly debated topic among writers (and the mostly likely to incite a fist fight). Here’s my take on it. There are two types of novelists (a gross generalization, but stick with me).
First are people who rarely, if ever, outline before they write. They may or may not even know how their story ends. These free sprits let their muses and spontaneity guide them.
Advantages of working WITHOUT an outline.
Your writing is a journey of (self) discovery.
Ultimate freedom.
Less preparation.
Disadvantages:
Blind PANIC that you don’t know where your novel is going.
A mess of a first draft.
No marketing tool for your finished novel.
Next are those who use a more craftsmen-like approach. They outline, they know much (if not everything) about their story before they write the first word.
Advantages working WITH an outline:
Story is already plotted out (one less worry for you).
Cleaner first draft.
You have a marketing tool to sell your novel.
Disadvantages:
Less spontaneity and art in your daily writing.
Upfront investment of work and time.
I believe that many writers’ brains are wired to preferentially work one way or the other.
I find, however, that the overwhelming majority of beginning writers do NOT outline. It’s hard work and no one likes hard work. Many stop around page 50 wondering what to do next--or worse, finish their novel and read through it and wonder why all the plot threads are a tangled mess.
If you’re a beginning writer, you owe it to yourself to try it and see if outlining works for you (likewise, if you're an outliner you should try working without a net). There are many famous, successful, and hip authors in both camps. I am an outliner, and therefore biased, but even if you don’t/can’t/won’t outline—you will have to write one eventually anyway.
Why? Because your agent/editor/publicist is going to ask for one.
I’ll talk more about this next time.
posted by Eric Nylund at 4:48 AM
15 Comments:
Very good summary, Eric.
I remember having to do outlines in high school English classes for homework. Otherwise called, a "Brainstorm", they really do work if you're planning on investing your time and actually writing a story that you put your thought into.
I would say to write an outline first, get down your 'big picture', expand on those ideas, then get creative once there is a cogent story.
Sometimes, you may not have to outline certain chapters of a story, but you're right, eventually you'll need one.
Another thing of note (slightly off-topic): I think that writing is a two-way street. You have to read to write. I think that the more you observe, the better off your writing will be. Not to say that copying off others is good, but kind of get a feel for the command of the English language through others' work and get your own inspirations from what you take in.
Even still, you'll probably need to brainstorm. I couldn't image the amount of brainstorm needed in writing Halo novels. There's so many details, people, and events to keep in mind.
Outlines are great, so long as they aren't too strict. Obviously, if the writer makes a rigid outline in stone, they will suffer from a lack of ingenuity because they're stuck in their box.
But, if you know the idea you have and know where it starts and finishes, then in a sense you already have an outline, albeit a crappy one not on paper. Once you get that down, its easy to get carried away and start writing to get it out there, and that's when most realize that they've got nothing left to write.
That happened to me. I wrote about 6 chapters and suddenly I knew that the story could not carry on the way it was. I managed to save a few of the original chapters, but had to start fresh, this time with a brief summary of what happened in each chapter. I found that easiest.
All i did was list the number of chapters I expected to write and one line saying where the chapter should end, or what major even happened. The end was a bit clearer, since I had thought it through, but it left room to come up with ideas on the fly for the middle of each chapter. I found it to be a nice balance.
As for brainstorms, they are great, so long as you can read your own writing. All too often i've seen writers unable to find their way across the chicken scratch of their brainstorms, following lines of ink off the end of the page in search of their original intent. Not exactly the kind of thing a writer should worry about.
I'm definitely a more free form writer. I guess my aversion to the outlines is the fact that I sometimes come up with an idea for something to write, and then, as I'm going through, something pops into my head and it completely changes the way the story comes out.
I've been tempted many times to sit down with an outline, but as I write, I realize that I'm never exactly sure how far I want my story to go. Like one I wrote was supposed to hover around 20 some chapters. Ended up being like 37.
The only times I've used outlines were in school -- and that was forced. I'm not going to say I dislike outlines, or say that they're not necessary. But I will say that I personally write better when I'm writing freeform.
I come up with my best ideas when I'm actually writing, "in the heat of the moment" of the scene I'm writing. New ideas just seem to appear in front of me before my eyes.
That being said, if and when I actually get into the novel-writing business, I'll definitely use some form of an outline(s) for the story. Would just be silly not to!
Every time I hear "outline" I think of those huge web-like diagrams we had to draw out in English class. I understood the need for them, but still didn't care for them because I felt they did stick the box to you. What I would do instead is very much similar to what I do now: write the outline with the story. I have no idea if it's the "proper" way to do it, but my assorted teacher types never discouraged it and it worked well for me, so I've stuck with it. Really, the end result is the same. I still end up with a story and an outline.
Hey, thanks for the great advice everyone! I recently started up a work and I think I'll try out the differing advice for different parts and see what kind of writer I am... Though up until this point I have been more spontaneous in approach, I think I'll need more of a net for such a long work as I am proposing to myself.
It really is great of you to offer advice like this to aspiring authors, thanks again!
One does not build a chair by running around in the forest picking up sticks, no matter how much fun it is.
I used to never like working with an outline. I had a good, general idea of where I was going to start and where I was going to end up, but everything in between ended up looking like bad improv, because it was. They made me use them in school, but even then I usually managed to just get by turning in a rough draft.
I have since embraced the outline, to an extent. I take a kind of sick delight from it now. It does feel, as Eric indicated, like being a craftsman. Fitting every part together with finely honed skill and instinct. Figuring out where things do and don't work has, curiously, almost made me feel more creative. When I get all of the parts together, I can go back and really say to myself if that is how the character would act, or how would this part do with an explosion. How hard can I push this thing before it stops working, and then how can I make it work better?
It’s great there are so many opinions on this! Again, I urge everyone to experiment with different techniques. If you’re going to write millions of words one day, best to mess around now and find out how to squeeze the most productivity and creativity out of your brain!
I'm in the middle of writing a book myself (science fiction), and I didn't write an outline. I'm 52 pages in and I'm going still (I'm actually working on it right now).
I guess I really don't have much to add on this, or won't until I finish my book.
I definately learned that the hard way. In Grade 6 I started writing a fantasy novel, unfortunately I lost it, but it was the time when my imagination was so vast that I didn't think of perfection. I started writing a novel for school project, I got about 50 pages in. But I didn't really plan even though I knew I should, I was on a deadline and really stressed, although it was just a practice novel. Now I am REALLY planning out a novel, and this time I think it will work. Thanks for the tips Eric!
I dunno. Probably being the youngest of those who have responded to this, I'm likely to be the least experienced (and therefore the least correct). However, I have found that I work better going off of memory. As long as I continue to write without stopping for more than a week, I've gotten along really well just having an outline right in my head. There are a few reasons I like this technique better:
Instead of getting from point a to point b in the story, I'm forced to come up with scenarios that move me towards where I want to be, and allow the character development to create reasons for what I am trying to achieve. If I have an outline, I find myself with blank characters because instead of being motivated by what they want, they simply become puppets for me to move around from plot point to plot point. Any character interaction seems to devolve to simple plot devices.
Another reason is that the writing seems to take on its own mind if I let it just flow. Sure I need a plan (and a good one), but by doing what I have, I now have three little plotlines weaving in and out of eachother, all building towards the final, exhilirating culmination. If I used a rigid outline, I'm fairly certain that it would be an amalgamation of events that lead up to the not-too-climactic climax. After all, if the characters and the story isn't engaging, the end won't be, either.
Obviously, I'm just one person. And obviously, I've got a lot to learn. I'll be the first to say that although my writing may be slightly above my age level, it's not literary ingenuity. But maybe one day I'll progress to that level. If I can evolve what I'm writing now to feeling comfortable with others' opinions of it, that's when I'll begin to trust my own advice. Until then, keeping and eye on yours will work.
I don't mean to be picky, but am I the only one who notices there is a verb missing from a sentence?
Quote: "Blind PANIC that you don’t where your novel is going."
I presume it is missing "know"?
I am writing a book on writing help. Though it is taking a very long time as I have had to depend on the schedules of authors to coincide with my own and they rarely ever do. But so far I have found some interesting perspective on outline vs spontinaeity (if I can't spell it probably follows I shouldn't use that method)For nonfiction or biographical work an outline is often more of an editing guide. You already know the details of the events but you have to decide what should stay and what should go. The same applies for screen writing where an original treatment may in turn evolve into a more literal storyboard or editing guide during filming. As for fiction the only advice in the pro side for storyboarding has been that it again improves the efficacy of a first draft and relieves a lot of frustration but can also be thrown out or made more flexible if genius strikes in the middle of the night.
Ah but I don't personally have a preference. I am writing the non-fiction help piece because quite frankly I need it in my own writing! And the search has already improved it in many ways.
Hello everyone!
I got this question that I've been debating with myself: Is it possible to write individual outlines for each chapter and not the entire novel? It's like outlining and doing a free-form style of writing at the same time(I think).
I found that writing an outline was helpful, but then also I found that I had a tendency to look at my outline, see what needed to be accomplished in a certain chapter, and then basically write out my brief summary from my outline with a few adjectives thrown in, resulting in extremely short and to the point chapters that really weren't all that great when it came to attempting to put together a complete novel.
Right now I'm trying an experiment where I'm working on two separate projects, one with an outline and one without. I'm not really sure which one is going better right now or which one I like doing most.
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