ok...so i'm a writer: to outline or not to outline?

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when i was in school (elementary, middle, or high...probably even college), i hated papers. i didn't mind writing, but it was just what we had to write about...and how formally we had to do it. it seemed so rigid, so silly...and they kept saying "write for your audience" as if some scholar was going to read what i thought about the themes and symbolism of a book i might never open again.

i know that's what they are supposed to teach, but it took me a good long while to appreciate it. i was a kid, ok? but what i least enjoyed was the idea of writing an outline. i don't know why, but i always got stuck there. i couldn't move past the outline. is that such a thing: outline block? it was for me. so what did i do? i wrote the paper first, then outlined it and turned it in.

i write better when i go more in a stream of conscious. my analytical brain lets itself be whatever it wants to be, say whatever it wants to say, and go wherever it wants to go without worrying about if it's getting off track. then, after that brain is done, the editing begins. the fat trimming, the tangents that distract go or get broken up into pieces and put where they will make sense. etc. etc.

an 'outline' of a moose :) SOURCE

so i've pretty much always done it this way. then i read some books about writing. one by stephen king, one by anne lamott, and one by an editor. all three have different ideas about writing with or without an outline. stephen? no thank you. he says it doesn't let your characters do what they are going to do without you manipulating them to go here or there. he says if you want to do it to get a little bit of confidence that you know where you're going with the story, go for it, but don't get attached.  anne lamott isn't a huge fan either. but the editor is. she says it shows you the arcs, where you're headed, etc. needless to say, everyone has his/her own opinion. so here's mine:

i think you should do an outline if you need one. it's that simple. if you need a boost to figure out your story and where it needs to go before you zoom in and get bogged down in the details, by all means. i'm doing that now. my current story is a mixture of real and unreal events, and i was having a hard time letting go of the real in order to bring in fiction. writing the outline helped me decide what to put where.

now before you say, ya, that's what an outline does, dummy...hear me out. i didn't do the good ole way:            

                      A.   1.
                             2.
                             3.
                                       a)
                                       b)
                      B.                        

 
i chose a way that would feel more natural to my stream of conscious self. i wrote paragraph for each "section" i could think of off the top of my head. it's 6 pages long with 12 roman numerals. they won't stay that way i can assure you, but it got the job done! now i know where my story is going. sometimes i even wrote out dialogue if it was in my head. sometimes i wrote out minute details that would typically never be allowed in an outline. but it served a purpose for me, and now my head is clear of all the ?'s and timetables and real life/fake life nonsense.

a sample of my outline for a new manuscript  

so do what you need to do to get your writing started. if you outline because it clears your head and you like that perfectly planned out piece of paper, please do it. if you get outline block, get to writing the manuscript.  if you change back and forth every single book you write, that's perfect too. if you get writer's block mid-manuscript...try what i did back in high school...write it then, and see what comes out when you aren't thinking so hard about the next words, so zoomed in that you can't zoom out and see the bigger picture.


the point is that there is no way. there are no rules now that you know all the rules. what matters is the result of whichever method you choose. if the book's amazing, no one gives a poop about how you got there. well, unless you plagiarized or something. but other than that...the book, the writing, the output will speak for itself.

don't be afraid of your process. own it every step of the way. from what i can tell in all the books i've read by extremely successful writers, they do.


just. get. it. done. 


and have a great day! ash

ok, so you're a writer....showing, not telling

       "show, don't tell." 


                 it's something i've heard as much as my name from my agent. it's a mantra for every writer i suppose, something i could justify getting tattooed on my body.  it's that big.  (but i don't have any tattoos so a blog post will have to do.)

about a year ago, i first told sarah about falling stars, the novel i'm still working on. i finished the manuscript (first draft, mind you) last may i think, but it has been given a makeover probably six or seven or maybe fifteen times since then. we've changed genres, my character changed ages, changes point of views, rewritten the beginning, added eighty pages of new content,  etc. we've done a lot.

and i'm thankful, oh am i thankful for all the drafts. they have literally forced me into knowing the difference between showing and telling. it's a hard thing to grasp when you are writing about something, not filming people doing that something. showing is easy when you're talking about visuals. but we are using words only (if you're in the y.a./adult genres) here, so you have to find a way to do more than describe. you have to get beyond adjectives. you have to find a voice.

we figured out (with the help of the ever brilliant emmanuelle of stonesong) that showing would be the easiest if i told the story from my main character's point of view. right from the first page, wham. you know her because she's talking to you, using her words, her asides...you're looking through her eyes. her words tell you more than i could ever tell you as a narrator. you know right away that she is southern, sweet, and determined but also a little scared. and in young adult, or so i've been taught, that's important. readers want to get to know the main character asap and get going on the ride. no time to waste, people!

that doesn't mean that first person is the only way to go, the only way to show, not tell. you just have to be super aware of a potentially better way. and don't be afraid to try shifting the point of view. we started with the first page, then the first section, then the first chapter. when it was clear that the new point of view was better, i went ahead and did the whole thing.

*** VERY IMPORTANT (at least to me) oh, and another thing about this lovely subject: i just learned something new about the definition of telling: it's anything that is not in the present action. that realllllly blew my mind. i had been writing backstory like in the year 2000 trying my best to show and not tell, to actually have my character at the age rather than her recounting what happened later. but simple fact that it's not in the present action makes it telling. holy crap! that changes everything! yet again!

so, now, i'm writing a new novel. i first tried it in my tried-and-true personal 3rd person style. i wrote it for probably 20 pages and then stopped to look. at the time, i had been attempting the switch for falling stars and it got me wondering how it would be if i changed it. (by the way, first person used to be daunting to me for some reason. and i couldn't help but feel like it was limiting...it's not, holy cow it's not.)  short story short, i'm rewriting it right now while i'm out of town and i love it! i already like my character ten times more because i feel like i know her that much better right from the beginning. i found that i tell more when i'm telling you what the main character's doing. i show more when i cut out the middle man, myself.

so whatever that means for you, just try it. and maybe that doesn't mean you change pov, maybe it means you just try to use more dialogue rather than describing the poop out of the scene and the characters in it. dialogue is very effective in showing because it gives you a glimpse of the dialects, it answers questions, asks questions, gets you into the with out extraneous details you might find in a fluffy "about" paragraph. i'm a big fan of dialogue. cut the fluff.

so far we have 4ways to show:

1. cut the middle man (change to first pov)
2. cut the fluff (use dialogue when you can to move the story)

the third one i have has nothing to do with your own writing at first.

3. watch a tv show or movie. i find that when i watch all show, no tell, i can get ideas on how to implement it in my writing. even if that show or movie has nothing to do with what i'm writing about. it just gets me out of my head i guess? anyway, if nothing else, you can get a break!

4. find ways to put your backstory into places like dialogue so that it's in more in the present action. that way, your reader doesn't have to stop every time you want to filter in some very important backstory. instead, it moves the story along.

something else i like to do when i write and want to make sure i am moving the story forward: run some diagnostics

a. one way is to read what you've got and take a red pen. go to every large paragraph and circle the tangents you have...this little story here about how crazy that person was....the story there about how much she loved those polka dot socks...you can look at the end at how much you run off course, how much you actually tell and don't even need to show!

b. another way is to read your story out loud. if you get bored or confused or feel like you're repeating yourself, you definitely are. and your reader will definitely feel the same way having absolutely no background information like you do on the story and where it's going. it's funny, when i read my stuff out loud, stuff just pops out. stuff i tried to make sure but sounds out of character...it pretty much jumps off the page
. i literally get stuck on it, and that's how i know. so while i'm reading, i'm adding or subtracting words, paragraphs, or simply writing the phrases "reword" or "rework" or "move somewhere else" next to spots i don't necessary want to lose, but don't like them as they are.

if i can impart anything on you, it's this: don't be afraid to go back and try something. it could mean the difference between finding a reader and keep her, between connecting with your intended audience, between finding an agent or a publisher. (i'll keep you posted on the reality of that last one.)

just try it. and remember!  just keep showing, just keep showing, just keep showing, showing, showing. (in the almost words of dory on finding nemo)

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studying: stephen king's on writing

i have another post series to start. yep another. this one isn't about the sponge-ing during a live event like i have with mr. conroy, mrs. kidd, and mr. gladwell. this one is about my personal study of writer how-to books. i think it's equally as important to actually read the works of the best writers as it is to hear their stories of how/why/when/etc.

for instance, i find myself frequently asking hmmm, i wonder if this author dealt with this first hand...or did they study it and research it? stuff that i would never have thought of on my own. reading their books on how they did it and why they did what they did or how they got started...it's so useful to me. i have always been interested in the imdb of life. which crappy parts did the actors do at the beginning, what were their big breaks, did those breaks look like just another part or did the actors know. it's only natural that i crave the same information in the literary world.

right now, i'm reading stephen kings's on writing and i'm love love loving it. it's like the best of both worlds. it's part memoir and part master class. it's easy to read and i feel like i know him now because of how personal it is. and then he'll throw this geniusness in there. needless to say, i'm taking notes and scribbling all over the book itself.

my questions regarding 11/22/63 are totally being answered. he worked at a mill i was curious about, lived in wisconsin, was an english teacher, was a janitor for one summer with his brother and met another janitor with a limp named harry. if you haven't read 11/22/63, you have no idea the significance. but for me...it was the icing on the cake.

what i like about this book most of all is how regular his story is. maybe too regular. i grew up with his name as a horror book (most were also films by the time i came around) author. i had no idea he was anything other than hugely successful writer. no idea he struggled. no idea of where any of his ideas had come from. but now i do, and i'm happy to say, i feel like i'm on the right track.

i started to write down some "tips" he gave me, but i think it would take about 20 pages to type all the amazingness i learned. so i'm going to wait for another post! trust me, it will be worth the wait.

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