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

source

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