Wednesday 13 January 2010

Outline Angst

I discovered after several years of hassle that I am an outline person. A good, solid outline makes not only the whole novel writing enjoyable for me, but also gives me a better result at the end. With my last novel (NaNo Draft), I also came up with a method that works for me. So when I decided to start outlining for a new project, I figured it was no big deal. I knew exactly what I was doing. It would be a piece of cake. Well, more like a piece of plastic cake that you can't eat, as it turned out initially. There is nothing wrong with the outline bit. The problem was me. Initially I brainstorm, and in the process I know how some things are going to happen. But even before the brainstorm the idea would have had been in my brain, and I would have a general plot in mind. I started outlining along with brainstorming. What I ended up doing was writing beginning of the outline millions of times. Because I would start doing it, and when I started, I started from beginning. In one session, I didn't get very far. This happened for quite a while. Also, outlining properly means answering hard questions as to how exactly certain things are going to happen. Well, I don't know at this stage how everything is going to happen, so I went off again to something I did know. For a good few weeks then this went on, madness without method, and not much to show for it at the end. Then I decided to do NaNo in February. Here I must interject: Nothing like NaNo to get things moving. At least that's the case for me. As soon as I made that decision, I thought if I don't get that outline sorted I won't be able to start NaNo on time. So then yesterday I started with plain, old fashioned method. I took several empty sheets of paper and a pen, and began to write from the beginning what happens. There are still things I don't know, major questions that need to be answered, but this time, I do not allow myself to go back. It's just like writing a first draft. First, you must get to the end. What I am now doing is going from beginning to end with the things I do know, and where I don't know how or what I write things like - "he does something and something happens". My favourite words are "something" "stuff" "somehow" - yup, very creative. But in one day I made more progress than I made in weeks. I haven't suddenly learned a great deal of information. This information was already in my head from brainstorming and from thinking about the book, but I simply wasn't working methodically enough to finish the outline. I let myself get distracted by things that needed to be sorted, questions that needed to be answered, before making sure that what I knew was going to happen made sense. This is merely the first draft of the outline. I call it my "skeleton outline". Once that is complete, then I will go back and try to fill in the gaps about things I don't yet know. But at least by that stage, I will have a general idea of the whole story and how everything is supposed to fit as a whole, and more importantly I won't be fed up of the beginning by going over it again and again. So there you have it - even outline has creative issues.

16 comments:

  1. Ha! My first draft of my skeleton outline is still in its early form!

    I've tried various forms of outlining, I've tried going it without an outline, I've tried closing my eyes and throwing darts at plot ideas and none of it seems to work. I do best when I sit down and write and let the story do what it does. My success rate with that? Wellll...

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  2. Yeah I know what you mean. All my outlines are skeleton outlines! I'm just not good at it, and a lot of stuff changes, but I will continue to do it, it does help ;o)

    NaNo in February, great idea :o)

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  3. This is exactly the difficulties I faced when I tried to outline for NaNo. I haven't yet figured out either whether it would be better for me to start at the beginning or start at the end. I like your use of "stuff" and "something" though. Better than a blank page :)

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  4. It takes me one to three weeks to finish an outline, working all day Mon to Fri. I usually do at least three drafts. When it's finished it is about 10% of the length of the final manuscript. So if the manuscript length is 40K it is about 4k long. That's not a rule; it's just how it works out for me. The outline is usually very detailed with a certain amount of dialogue that may or may not be used in the final ms. I didn't always write detailed outlines like this. I wrote my first 6 novels with no outline at all but since I started using outlines I think my books have got much better. They may not work for everyone but if they're your thing, I really recommend spending as much time as you can on them. You can always go off-plan when you're writing the full ms.

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  5. I do a skeleton outline and then list each scene (usually one chapter) on an index card with some notes. That allows me to shuffle scenes around etc. as needed.

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  6. Brian,

    I actually do outlines very similar to yours. The first draft is skeleton outline, where it's basically getting idea of the plot. Then I elaborate into what I call "Point Outline" - there are posts on them under November 2009. My NaNo outline was either 8K or 12K - can't remember which now, for 80K first draft. Detailed outlines definitely work for me.

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  7. Matt / Erica / Eric,

    Skeleton outline is just the first step. Once I know what's supposed to happen overall in the plot, I will follow "points outline" method that I devised for my NaNo draft. That definitely works for me.

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  8. Matilda,

    My "Point Outline" method is similar to scenes, but not strictly divided by scenes. It's divided more by the points I happen to come across. And I don't do index cards, but rather just do it on PC and finally outline is usually linear, or at least it is supposed to be.

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  9. Brian,

    Another thing - I also found that detailed outlines make my story much more coherent than just writing without any plan.

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  10. "Plastic piece of cake" - I *love* that! LOL

    Congrats on getting moving again...if a NaNo session is what does it, so much the better. Sometimes "something" "stuff" and "someone" is all you can do - I use those placeholders quite often myself. :-)

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  11. An outline also allows you to test drive your plot which is so helpful. It avoids those awful moments where you realise you actually don't know how to get your character from point A to point B in the narrative. Or worse - you don't know how to end.

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  12. Jamie, thanks. I found writing first draft rather quickly gets the creativity flowing.

    Brian, yes I found the same thing. outline helped me considerably with plot holes.

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  13. I found, by trial and error, that once I had the first chapter down -which was done 'pantser' style, I had a rough idea of the outline for the next chapter.
    Unfortunately mycharacters never read the outline!
    So I'm back to 'pantser' with notes on scraps of paper for various scenes ahead, which may never happen. I'm careful not to let the characters find out where I hide my notes. :-)

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  14. Sherry, at least you tried so you know what works with you. That's the key.

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  15. I first wrote a detailed synopsis when I was ghostwriting. The publisher and 'author' needed to agree the story before I wrote it. Ever since then I've found them very useful, as when I'm doing the actual drafting I can concentrate on bringing it all to life as vividly as possible.

    Good post - and thanks for your comment on my blog!

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  16. dirtywhitecandy,

    Thanks for stopping by. :-) I am definitely in favour of outlines, and just hope that with more practice, I will get even better at them.

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