• Read this: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?288931-Guidelines-for-Participation-in-Outwitting-Writer-s-Block

    before you post.

Just Write....

Status
Not open for further replies.

DifferentlySeen

Registered
Joined
Jun 22, 2018
Messages
11
Reaction score
4
I don't know if what I am suffering from is writer's block because I can write scenes and continue the story - it's just that things evolve along this really weird route and the characters end up in a very different place from the beginning.

One thing I should say is that I simply cannot outline. I wish I could and I have tried many times but it just ain't happening. I think if I did have an outline that I could stick to then my story would follow the path towards the end that I have in mind. But instead the story goes where the characters seem to take it - maybe that's not a bad thing....

With this in mind I have decided to just write. I don't try and make any plans for the characters I kind of let them decide what happens and off we go. I am currently writing approx 3600 words a day and allowing things to just evolve. There is no craziness, it's not like the characters can suddenly grow wings and fly or wake up in a mystical land with strange creatures. They are doing what they would do as the characters that they are - but no outline seems to contain them.

Maybe this is my writing process, but it feels like I am not at the helm.
 

ValerieJane

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 4, 2010
Messages
213
Reaction score
39
Location
Gerudo Valley
I really respect this approach because I've found that I must outline in order to know where to go. I understand what you're saying, though. Maybe keep in mind some general goals or motivations for your characters to keep them on some sort of track. If you have an idea for your overall plot, always keep that in mind, too. I would even go so far as to write the main goal on a card or something and physically post it in my writing space.

There's nothing wrong with your characters not taking a straight-line route to the end goal, as long as they continue forward toward that goal.
 

Ari Meermans

MacAllister's Official Minion & Greeter
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Messages
12,853
Reaction score
3,051
Location
Not where you last saw me.
It's a workable process and you are at the helm, even it doesn't feel that way at times. Really, it's your story and you are at the helm, at least subconsciously. It might help to look at your process—which is quite similar to mine—as a process of discovery, not only of the story, but also of what is deep inside you wanting to come out.
 

DifferentlySeen

Registered
Joined
Jun 22, 2018
Messages
11
Reaction score
4
Thanks for the encouragement. Believe me, if I could outline successfully I would. I have tried thousands of times and failed. I guess I don't have the right mind for it.
 

Scythian

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 4, 2018
Messages
201
Reaction score
40
This is called "pantsing". Half the writers outline and half the writers pants.

Really, time to read some interviews by writers about how they write. Half of them don't outline, especially in literary fiction, but in commercial too.

It's the same with editing. Some writers write the draft and then edit it a couple of million times. Others just write a chapter and then edit it until it's done, and only then move on to the next chapter.

Whatever works.
 
Last edited:

Vhb_Rocketman

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 11, 2018
Messages
58
Reaction score
4
Location
Canada
It's just a different style of writing, nothing wrong with that. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try outlining if you feel it might be helpful (or if you just want to try it). But my guess even if you did write an outline you probably wouldn't stick to it. Which is also fine.

I'm in the middle somewhere. I do write outlines, then I let the characters decide where they want to go. All the while I keep the outline as a guide. Sometimes the characters follow it and sometimes they don't. If they don't the just means I might have to update the outline.
 

Greene_Hesperide1990

Protecter of the Garden
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
1,018
Reaction score
30
Location
New Jersey
Yeah I bought a book on outlining novels and I minutely used it. I think just writing is the best route at times, so when you finish the product, you can just look back and edit from there.
 

DanielSTJ

The Wandering Bard
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 3, 2017
Messages
5,410
Reaction score
368
Age
34
Location
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Hey, if what you're doing is working then there's no need to try something that obviously doesn't for you.

Just my amateur two cents!
 

Harlequin

Eat books, not brains!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,584
Reaction score
1,412
Location
The land from whence the shadows fall
Website
www.sunyidean.com
I don't outline. I write out of order, I throw words at paper, I overhaul and revise constantly.

It works just fine. The main thing is to get words down because writing isn't finish until it's published. You just keep revising till it's right.
 

TinaG

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2018
Messages
155
Reaction score
15
Location
way out there somewhere
I do both as long as I reach my creative goal it doesn't matter. If I do not outline it does take a little longer to reach my goals however if I try to outline when creatively I'm lead not to it takes just as long. To explain that: Sometimes I have a moment that sparks an idea that would be dead center of my book where as other times I get an idea that would be at the beginning. If I try to outline from the middle it doesn't work for me and I am all over the place trying to start an outline. On the other hand if the idea comes from the beginning I outline to save time and organize my thoughts. I always simply do what works for me. I don't make rules so I don't have to break them :)
 

under the moon

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Messages
84
Reaction score
4
Location
Burbank, CA
Website
staceyebryan.wordpress.com
I went through severe writer's block for a year and couldn't do one thing, I felt like, to make it go away. My mind remained blank and so did my writing pages. Making notes, making outlines, looking at the outlines, trying not to think about it, forcing myself to think about it. Maybe the problem is not having an actual "process." Maybe I'm just throwing the net out and "hoping" catch something. It broke, finally, though, for no apparent reason. Maybe I just don't know my own mind!
 

NateCrow

Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2018
Messages
40
Reaction score
6
Location
Near those big waterfalls
I always do a detailed outline of my work now. When I "pants" it, and let my characters run with the story, the final product seems more predictable and it has a bland kind of feel to it. That being said, I never stick to my outline 100%. It's usually something closer to 70%, but when I deviate, it's still building off of that structure that I established in advance. This also helps to keep me from writing myself into a corner, which can be a major source of writer's block and can cause me to abandon a story entirely, which is something I hate to do.

Obviously, this is my experience and every writer has their own way of doing things that works for them. Though, from what you're saying, it sounds like it's not working very well for you.

When you start, do you have any idea at all where you want the story to go? If so, that's the beginning of an outline, you could just work on fleshing that out a little and if you deviate from it, just try to make sure that you're headed to something interesting, with conflict. Don't try to make it easier for your characters, helping them along to the resolution. If anything, you should try to make it harder for them. That's what makes a story interesting.

If not, and you are just dropping characters into their everyday situation and waiting for the story to evolve from their actions, you may have some difficulty getting things moving. The way I see it, fiction is meant to simulate reality, to take an interesting story and make it as realistic as possible, not to take a starting point and run it like a computer model, letting the starting parameters evolve on their own. That's how the real reality works, and the vast majority of real life would be boring if you sat down and tried to write it out.

This is all part of the process though, learning what works for you. Everybody has their own way, and they figured it out through trial and error. Keep writing, and try out all the different bits of advice you're given until you feel like you've found a system that works. Just be aware that you'll probably still doubt yourself, hate a lot of what you've written, be tempted to throw it in the trash, etc. I'm still trying to move past that part but, from what I've heard from other writers, it seems like that stuff might never go away.
 
Last edited:

Chanan12

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 16, 2017
Messages
50
Reaction score
5
I outline too much,so if you need a spare one I got plenty.
 

Metruis

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 7, 2010
Messages
85
Reaction score
26
Location
Canada
Website
www.feedthemultiverse.com
I don't know if what I am suffering from is writer's block because I can write scenes and continue the story - it's just that things evolve along this really weird route and the characters end up in a very different place from the beginning.

...

Maybe this is my writing process, but it feels like I am not at the helm.

You're a pantser. It's not writer's block. Just consider your first draft to be a REALLY LONG outline, aright? Do what they tell you and go wherever it takes you. "They're not at the same place by the end" is a clear sign that story happened.
 

TheFabulist

Registered
Joined
Aug 2, 2018
Messages
24
Reaction score
0
Location
UK
In my previous life I used outlining a great deal, because I was working to a deadline, had specific points to get across and generally had a good idea of the end point. That isn't the case for me now, trying to write fiction. I start with an idea or concept and then build around it, not always in sequence and even when it is I often change things around at a later stage.

There can be long periods when I don't write. That's usually because I'm doing something else - printmaking/collage, reading and too often of late just being ill!. When I do write though, if I get stuck on one piece, I move on to another. I've usually got half a dozen ideas on the go. I've also started writing on my laptop - I used to do it in a notebook - so I can pick up for brief periods, even if only to jot down a couple of sentences, or reread what's there so far. At some point though I print it out. I find looking at words on paper changes my relationship to what's been written somehow and helps me make progress.
 

rgroberts

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 1, 2018
Messages
135
Reaction score
14
Location
New England, USA
I'm half pantster and half-plotter myself, so I know how it feels to let the characters run the show. That's usually my preferred method, but since I like complicated plots with lots of moving parts, I've developed an in-between method that works pretty well for me.

I’m not incapable of making outlines; my bachelors is in History, which means that I can outline like it’s my job. Because, well, it kind of was. And anyone who tries to write a 100+ page thesis without an outline is more talented than me. But for fiction, if I do an outline, I get massively bored. It doesn't work for me. I write to see how the story ends. I write to find the ending, because I want to know that as much as anyone else reading it. Writing, for me, is 50% planning and 50% an adventure. I only write what I’d want to read, and I enjoy discovering how it works along the way.

So, over the years I developed a method that works for me. It’s specific enough that I know what’s going to happen, but it’s vague enough to keep me interested. I write down plot points, which eventually translate into one scene or two, sometimes more. They’re thoughts, roughly in order, which I move around constantly until I like the way they look and the order makes sense.

Some of those scenes don't end up making the story at all, and some end up changing dramatically before they get in. This happens a lot, since I jot plot points down in groups of 20-30 and I accept that they will change as the story develops. When I start this process, with no story at all, I type up the first 20-30 plot points, which generally covers 5 chapters or so. Sometimes more. I don’t worry about what order they go in yet; I just get them down. Then, leaving myself some white space to remember that “other stuff will happen”, I put down the other major plot points that I don’t want to forget.

I also delete the crap out of plot points as I go. It keeps me motivated to watch the list getting shorter - not that it usually does, as my stories always grow beyond how long I think they’re going to be.
 

Davy The First

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
396
Reaction score
121
Moved from Pantster to Plotter a while back - much much better - FOR ME.

It may just be that I can pantster in my subconscious more now than I could before, so plotting is just the shed it'll all fit into.
 

rosegold

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 10, 2018
Messages
123
Reaction score
10
I like having a weak outline, or else I'm stuck endlessly revising. It can't be too planned though because I also like letting the characters lead the way. I've had so many scenes that didn't feel right, but they were in my head for so long that I forced them in anyway. Those are usually my worst scenes, and I'm rarely happy when I read them.
 

DanaeMcB

Curious turtle
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 11, 2015
Messages
261
Reaction score
86
Location
Atlanta!
I was just reading some blog articles by K.M. Weiland on her site HelpingWritersBecomeAuthors.com. She has some in-depth comments on theme, which drives the story alongside the plot. The theme is more about your main character's internal motivations and beliefs that steer their actions and decisions. I was just thinking that could be a good guide, if you can't outline/plot in advance, with which you could still know you have something consistent moving your story forward.
 

OldHat63

Banned
Flounced
Joined
Aug 21, 2018
Messages
404
Reaction score
30
Location
Lost in the woods of TN and prefer it that way
I don't have an outline and don't want one. I have the beginning of a story, a bunch or well-thought out characters, and a path those characters have been on for quite a while now. I know where they're trying to get to, but it's more entertaining for me to just let them, more or less, find their own path.


Also, given that I have a volume of information in my head that's equal to what Hoover Dam is holding back, and only one set of eyes and hands to filter it all through ( Talk about a bottleneck... damn. )... I just don't think anything but a very broad outline is possible.

But then again, what do I know? I have no clue as to what I'm actually doing, I'm just doing it any way.
 
Last edited:

Myrealana

I aim to misbehave
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 29, 2012
Messages
5,425
Reaction score
1,911
Location
Denver, CO
Website
www.badfoodie.com
Outline is by no means a prerequisite to writing. If you work best writing by the seat of your pants, then do it.

Some writers feel more like they're channeling for their characters, and they can be surprised at the direction things take. Others "hire" characters to work for them, and they always know where things are going.

Both methods work. Don't get hung up on using the "right" method - whatever gives you victory over the blank page is right.
 

TheFabulist

Registered
Joined
Aug 2, 2018
Messages
24
Reaction score
0
Location
UK
I recall reading somewhere advice to the effect that if you get stuck in writing a specific scene, then you should try shifting to a broad brush level and move the story on until you get stuck then go back to a more detailed level. In essence this seems like the 'snowflake' approach but less systematic.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.