Me on Outlining:
Sometimes I'm all about it, and sometimes I'm all like, "Mehrrrr, why?!"
But, first things first: I had a couple of additional commitments this week, so I came in a lil' under for my 3/25 - 3/30 WWR at 5,641 words, BUT! My RWT has officially passed the 40,000 word mark!!! I was pretty stoked about that alone -it's so rewarding to see that first draft binder start to fill up with pages. So thumbs up there!
Now back to the topic at hand: I'm one of those writers who has a real take-it or leave-it kind of philosophy towards outlining. As a general rule, I like to have an idea of major events (what I call "landmarks") or turning points I'll have featured in the story, as well as a basic idea of when these events will occur in the sequence of things. For example, with KHO, KHT being a murder mystery, the very first thing I did was write a very detailed outline of how the whole murder went down, timed everything out hour by hour, made note of red herrings, possible police theories, suspects, all of that. The murder was the one thing I wanted to have down solid before diving into the rest of the story. Because there is a six-year gap between the murder itself and when the story takes place in the present day, I wanted there to be no wiggle room or flying by the seat of my artistic pants.
However, I'm not making a thorough outline of joining scenes between KHO, KHT's major events because, I myself, enjoy a bit of surprise, too. I love it (or loathe it, haha, depending on how convenient it is) when you have one idea in your head and the characters or their circumstances take you in an entirely different direction than you expected -and it's always, always, always been for the better, in my experience. I had this happen a couple of weeks ago: one scene I envisioned taking place between two characters just wasn't transferring onto the page. It was SUCH A STRUGGLE to write, and after about an hour, I realized that the scene was totally implausible because it simply wasn't in either of the characters' natures. (Funny how your characters start dictating your scenes, isn't it? You just get to know them better with time!) No biggie. I shifted gears, changed the avenue to pursue, and, BAM! I had a much more interesting, much more believable chapter, two hours later.
And as a point of process here, you can't sweat the trashed chapters. (In fact, I save all of mine both in electronic and hardcopy form. You never know when even a portion of something will become applicable again in the story -or relevant for an entirely new book, for that matter!) Don't view chucking something out as a waste of time, but as an investment towards crafting a really stellar story. Perhaps next week I'll write a piece on what I call "First Draft Paralysis," where you literally feel like you can't write because you're so concerned about getting everything down perfect the first time. So you just don't write. And all of your excellent, innovative ideas never make it out of your head, and you get into the most toxic mind space a writer can enter: "Should-a Would-a Could-a Land".
But, I digress ;D
As one final bit of advice in regard to outlining, if a full outline makes you feel claustrophobic or creatively stagnant, what I find helpful is using the "Three Chapters Out" rule. Take where you are currently writing within the storyline and just write a brief synopsis of what you'd like to see happen in the next three chapters. And as you achieve that point, do the next three chapters. Then the next. And the next. What conversations do you envision? What new details or information relevant to the story needs to be revealed to move you towards that next landmark in the plot? This is a technique that I most often apply to my writing because it helps me remain focused, while still allowing enough freedom to shake things up as I see fit. It's the security of a writing map without the psychological commitment of a full outline.
I hope all you writers out there find this helpful! Also, if you didn't catch my tweety-tweet this past Wednesday, I'll have a very exciting announcement to make on Saturday evening, April 5th, in regard to something fabulous and writing related ;) Here's the three fortune cookie fortunes I merged into one MEGA FORTUNE to give y'all a hint:
Happy writing!
~Riley
