Outline question

Too much work for me.

I know where my story is going--the outline serves to remind me so I don't forget major points before I get to them. I do modify it as I go, once I realize I need additional scenes or changes, so the outline continues to evolve with the manuscript.

But starting with a sentence, then building it into a paragraph, page, etc. until you have a whole chapter is foreign to my way of working. But if it works for you, do it. We're all different.

Well, Marlys is right about whatever works for you. We all do things differently, and the only way to judge a method is by the final product.

But I would caution you to be very careful doing this. You could end up with a story that reads like 10 seperate sections (lets assume 10 chapters) rather than one flowing, cohesive novel.

I don't outline, unless there are dates and numbers I want to keep in mind, then it's not outlining but note-jotting. I prefer to begin at the beginning, work my way through the middle and continue until I reach The End.

But whatever floats your bagel ! If that works for you, and you end with quality, then march on.

If it works for you. I used to hate outlines. But I was thinking of them in the way they teach you in school. Ugh. I read Writing the Novel by Lawrence Block, and he points out that for every writer, there is a different outline. There is no wrong way to outline. It is what works for you. I had a writing teacher who kept telling me I was summarizing. Instead of helping me, I only grew frustrated and finally put it in a drawer. Then I read Block and realized what I'd written in class was MY outline. It was in prose form...YAY.

Excuse a newbie for butting in, but,

I don't outline because that's not the way the creative process works for me. I begin with a somewhat vague notion of what the story is about, e.g. my first book, "A Perfect Peace" started out as an idea about how two gay men who meet in the Army in WW2 might deal with the difficulties they encounter both with the world and with each other. The second story, "Arise Beloved" (also set in WW2) started with an idea about a woman aviator who flies for he WASPs and the man, a sailor, who taught her to fly. I also started with a working title but in neither case did it end up as the final title. In both cases I just started writing with some ideas about the characters' lives prior to their meeting. Next I imagined and described how each of the couples met and what happened between them when I brought their personalities together. As I wrote, the stories developed out of the interaction of the characters.

In both cases, by the time I had written two or three chapters, I began to see where the story was going. After about five chapters, I knew the characters well enough that I thought I knew where the problems would be in the relationship (both external to it and between the two characters.) From there I put them in situations that would test them, give them a chance for gaining self-knowledge, and finally resolve the problems (or not) and conclude the story--but the story started with the characters and only a vague idea of the plot.

In reality, the beginning of the final version of both stories starts at about Chapter 3 or 4 in the original writing, most of which got tossed because it was "back story" that didn't belong in the final version and, what little of it did, could be covered in flashbacks.

I know that my method isn't for everyone because not everyone is able to discard large amounts of their work--probably as much as half of what I write--but for me it's part of the creative process. Doing a lot of writing that gets discarded helps me to find the final story and to understand the characters more deeply than I first imagined them. For me, it's like getting to know real people, it takes some time living with them and seeing how they act in different circumstances--what their strengths and weaknesses are. That means that the characters and the story won't work in some of the circumstances and events I try, so I have to toss out a lot of writing, but it's not wasted effort because, if it teaches me about the characters, that's a gain.

Most of the process for me goes on in the unconscious and during the writing process my conscious mind manages slowly to grasp things it couldn't imagine or even guess on its own. A sculptor (I think it may have been Michaelangelo.) said carving a statue was liberating it from the stone by chipping away everything that wasn't the statue. I guess that's sort of how I work; writing a huge block of prose then chipping away everything that's not the story. But sometimes you have to grit your teeth when you have to throw away some pieces of rock that are damn pretty.

Outline or not, I suspect a good writer always throws out as much as he/she keeps--or should.

Dreadnaught said:

And then an outline with a page for each chapter. Then an outline with two pages. And on until the outline turns into the complete draft.

Click to expand...

This isn't how I work (but may be some day, since I seem to never do anything the same way twice), though what you describe is exactly the way our beloved Uncle Jim writes. Have you read through his thread, yet? I know it's daunting in size, but it's packed full of juicy goodness, too.

Best of luck!

I do two - A 2-4 paragraph synopsis for the whole story, then a chapter outline. But that's what I've been doing to get a graphic novel script, prose novels are bigger and more complicated so putting another level in there might be helpful, or writing a synopsis from each main character's point of view then weaving them together to get a chapter outline.