Listen.
Fuck outlining.
I know it works for some people. For a lot of people. And that’s cool.
I’ve read the books that tell me I cannot possibly have a career as a successful indie without outlining my novels so that I can bang them out in rapid succession. Because, you know, it’s obviously impossible to do that as a pantser.
But listen.
An outline, a traditional outline with all the plot points and turning points and point-by-points. Girl. They don’t work for me.
I can certainly create an outline. One that totally works and lines up all the motivations and cause and effect and rising and falling action and SOUNDS like a really great story. And then I’ll never write it.
I have to actually roll up my sleeves and get in there and feel the story. That’s how I find out what my characters fear the most, who they’re fighting and what they want to hide, how to hurt them the most and how to make their dreams come true.
Ok, so I don’t go in completely blind. But I don’t need much. A strong voice from at least one of the main characters. A notion of what the biggest plot point will be — the back cover blurb version of the plot. I know who I’m working with, what they’re up against in the big picture, and the sort of wide arc of the story.
That’s the only way I’ve ever come close to finishing a full draft — during NaNo, for example. When it’s too fleshed out, I can’t follow it. And if the goal is to, you know, write a whole book, finish a draft so that you can publish it and start over again, surely the “right” way to do it is whatever way works for you.
So that’s what I’m going with.
I’m giving myself permission to fuck off with outlines and just write in whatever way works for me. And the permissions to now actually KNOW exactly what that way is, to figure it all out as I go along, and wait until I finish and publish my first novel to really say for sure which way has worked for me.
ScarletQuill 