As I said in our last exciting episode, there are two kinds of novel outlines writers do: the sort meant to sell a manuscript to a publisher, and the sort meant to help the writer write the book. This post is about the second kind.
The first and possibly most important thing to know about the planning-and-guidance sort of outline is this: It is entirely optional, and may be subject to change at any time at the writer’s whim. (Or, as my friend Lois Bujold puts it, “The writer should always reserve the right to have a better idea.”)
Allow me to repeat: Outlining is optional. It works for some writers, but not for others, and for still others, it is actively harmful. If it helps you, do it; if you try it and find out that it doesn’t help you, for goodness’ sake don’t feel guilty because you “aren’t doing it right.” There is no One True Way. And if you fall into the last category, that of writers whose work is actively harmed by outlining, feel free to sneer openly at anyone who tries to tell you that you should do so, and to ignore anyone who demands that you outline.
There; now that we have that settled…
When writers outline as a planning tool, all bets are off. There are no rules for doing this other than “if it helps YOU, do it that way.” Some writers do detailed outlines in advance (sometimes the “outline” ends up being longer than the actual book, because the writer includes all the background and backstory and worldbuilding details that never make it into the finished manuscript). Some write several chapters and only sit down to outline the rest of the book when they hit the “first veil” – that first sticky spot where things have to start invisibly coming together in the writer’s head, behind the scenes. Some do a sketchy outline as prewriting, then a more detailed one after they’ve written a third to half the book. Still others don’t outline until they have a first draft – they use outlining as a revision tool. Some do any and all of the above, as the situation demands.
What a working/planning outline looks like also varies from writer to writer. Mine usually look a lot like my submission outlines, only longer – they’re just narrative summaries of what I think is going to happen, set down as if I were telling the story to someone: “Kim finds out that Richard’s looking for this set of magical doohickies. The doohickies have been split up; he’s got one, and thinks he knows where the next one is. They head to the country house…”
(To be quite honest, that’s what my outlines look like AFTER I’ve written the story. Before hand, it’s more like “Kim suspects Richard’s looking for a Pegasus, but they leave for Egypt before she can be sure, and…” I can’t follow a working outline to save my life.)
Anyway… Some writers do a chapter breakdown; some do a scene-by-scene breakdown; some just do key points. Some use the sort of outline we all learned in school, with points I.A.1.a staggered with increasing indentations down the page. Some get specialized programs for writing (which can be fun if you can afford them and don’t take them too seriously); some use spreadsheets; some use diagrams (like Nicky Browne’s circle diagram [scroll down a ways to find it], or the “Big W” diagram, where you draw a big W on a brown paper bag and start with the opening “status quo” at the top of the first leg, put the first big crisis at the first bottom point, the mid-book turning point at the top of the middle, the darkest moment at the second bottom point, and the ultimate resolution at the top of the last leg, and then fill in steps up and down to get from each point to the next one). I like Post-It Notes and flow charts, which I later resolve into narrative summaries.
The point is, there isn’t a wrong way to do this, and the web is full of suggestions for things to try. If people have questions or want more detail on specific methods, please ask; otherwise I’ll go on to something else next.
Actually, it’s even worse than that – a point you glide lightly over with ‘as the situation demands’. My experience is that different books require totally different outlining methods or abstention therefrom. I suppose that’s because they present different problems, and suspect that the use of whichever aren’t currently necessary tends to cause choke and overthinking. For me, at any rate.
One technique you don’t mention, probably more consistently useful to me than any other single method: the write-only outline, whose use-by date for consultation is at best that of yesterday’s mackerel, but whose repeated serious attempt works wonders for the nebulous patches ahead. My main difficulty with those was in realizing that their write-only tendency was not necessarily a bug.
Contents lists with really evocative and memorable chapter titles are a good way of keeping the shape of the story in mind too, as long as I don’t get too attached to any of them (BTDT). Chapter-phrases work at a very handy level of chunking.
One outstanding question: do you use outlining methods for length control? The Browne circle diagram is the only tool I’ve ever found, besides my intermittently reliable seat-of-the-pants instinct, that gives me any natural handle on that at all.
Gray – To date, I don’t think I’ve ever used anything other thn instinct for length control. Well, instinct and obsessively checking the word count to see how much I had left, when I was doing the middle-school books (which are really the only things I’ve done that actually had a severe length limit). Everything else has been like the right length for legs – long enough to reach the ground.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for mentioning the “for some, outlining is actively harmful.” I have hopes of actually outlining and writing something someday, but thus far… If I outline, I’ve told the story. If I’ve told the story, I’m done. Instead of a force of words for “what happens next,” pushing out of me like water from a fire hydrant, I have to drill a well, drop a bucket down, and haul it up, letter by letter, without even a pulley to help.
I’m hoping that if I can get a lot of assistance and support (I write for the enthusiasm of my beta-readers, as well; it’s like cookies, but with no calories!), I can manage something with an outline. I’m waiting for my spouse to retire, first.
Beth – If writing without an outline is working for you, and you already know that writing with an outline kills the story, why are you so determined to “manage something with an outline”? Is it just “grass is greener the way other people do it” syndrome, or do you have stories that you did outlines for that you still kind of want to tell even though they’re dead, or what? If you’d never tried outlining, I’d probably say give it a whirl to see if it works, but if you’ve tried it and already know that it doesn’t work for you, why keep pushing? Writing is hard enough to learn how to do without making it even harder by doing it in some way that doesn’t fit your process.
Pat – It must be a very fine thing, to have a natural length which is not a novella or a doorstop. Or, in the worst cases, a non-stop doorstop…
Beth – If I tell the story the wrong way, I’m done too. At least, I’m done till I forget that I told it that way, or stop caring. Sometimes that’s a mighty long time.
One trick which sometimes works, but took me another mighty long time to come to, is this: instead of outlining the True Story, give a summary – a historical article, a poem or song, whatever – from a narrator who is in some important respect infuriatingly wrong about everything.
There remains then the rage to correct it, and tell what actually happened, with a handy non-authoritative guideline to work to. If as Pat suggests you have undead outlines waiting seductively in their coffins, do you think that ‘de-authorizing’ them might wake them again? It’s worked a couple of times for me. [Truth in advertising: I have no publications yet to my name, and for this technique it’s still too early to call in any results except, ‘Lazarus got up and walked, after long decay’. To the finishing post? Not yet; but at least through productive months I’d never expected.]
I just have a little vague idea in my head of what will *probably* come next -it doesn’t mean it will, for me!- and then when I get to that part in my writing, I just keep going for a page or so until another vague idea appears. Sometimes my idea comes out in something that a character says, and I didn’t even plan on it. It seems like my story has a mind of its own! That is my kind-of outline, but it works! (For me!)
One other thing that does not pertain very much, but I am still curious about: *What* is a doohickie?! 🙂