Are Outlines Worth Making?

[sr71plt]

So let me ask you, does having the title help "enforce" the story in your mind? Because I feel that is what it does for me.

It either enforces the story or it has to change. I'm not married to anything in a story until it's done and turns out to be whatever it is.

 

[jezzaz]

I use outlines, but it's more because when I write the novels I have, they are designed as screen plays. I write an outline for each scene, who's in it and how it progresses the story. Then I reference this when writing - this is especially useful if I leave the book for a while and come back three months later - it's the work of an hour to work out where I was, where I was going and what comes next.

I don't do that for the stories I write on Lit Erotica because generally they aren't long enough to require it - I get done with them in a week. But I do plan what I'm going to do, how I'm going to write it and what the sequence of events are.

I also have the issue of characters sometimes getting away from me. I have no hard and fast rules about what to do about that. Sometimes, even with their veering away from what they are supposed to do, I can either a) change what they need to do sufficiently that their aberrant behavior isn't a big deal (obviously without changing the story) or b) find a way to bring them back around to what the plot needs them to do.

On some occasions I do have to re-write. Not often, but it does happen.

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules about how you write, or if outlines are required or not. They help me with the novels but that doesn't mean they are for everyone. - What Autopilot said.

 

[laptopwriter]

There is one thing I use in my writing that I feel

is absolutely essential and I could not write without it...a cup of coffee at my side.

 

[Weird Harold]

Most of my stories are quite short and outlines don't seem necessary or very practical. That being said, there's a story floating through my dreams that I've written an outline/notes for because it's far more complicated than most of my other ones. As to whether or not it does me any good, well, that's a horse of a different color. Periwinkle, I think.

^^^this.

One technique I've used for longer works -- so far uncompleted, fwiw -- is to start with a basic bare-bones outline. Then edit that outline to expand each point with a little more detail;adding bullet points as necessary.

Repeat as necessary until each point in the outline is expanded to a full scene and voila a completed story ready for editing and proof-reading.

 

[glynndah]

^^^this.

One technique I've used for longer works -- so far uncompleted, fwiw -- is to start with a basic bare-bones outline. Then edit that outline to expand each point with a little more detail;adding bullet points as necessary.

Repeat as necessary until each point in the outline is expanded to a full scene and voila a completed story ready for editing and proof-reading.

Ooh! Weird Harold agrees with me. I feel all smart and stuff. *preens*

 

[slyc_willie]

I personally think there is a trick to outlines. I think many people assume outlines are something like a very short summary of what is going to happen within the chapter or section - and I think that is a mistake.

To me the outline consists often only of one single key word - something that I must remember should show up in that segment somewhere because it is the thing that I want to be important about that part of the story. Or even just something which for personal reasons I want to have included in the story - and which may have little or nothing to do with moving the action along. Maybe something there just to give a feeling about something.

If I would ever use anything close to an outline, it would be something like this. A long time ago, an English teacher told me I had to make an outline before writing, otherwise I would only write garbage. I took her advice to heart . . . and ended up with about a dozen detailed outlines and no written stories. For me, making a point-by-point outline is almost the same as writing the story itself. Once I've done the outline, I feel like there's no point writing the actual tale. Part of the writing, for me, is the unpredictability of what's going to pour out of my fingertips and onto the keyboard.

The most I will do -- and I think I've done this two or three times at best -- is write down a few important ideas on sticky notes and put them on the wall in front of me in my office. It could just be a name, or a single line of dialogue, or something else apparently mundane, intended to trigger something when I get to the appropriate part. I rely primarily on my memory, and my memory is pretty damned good. If I don't remember a detail, then it wasn't important enough to put in the story.

 

[jezzaz]

If I would ever use anything close to an outline, it would be something like this. A long time ago, an English teacher told me I had to make an outline before writing, otherwise I would only write garbage. I took her advice to heart . . . and ended up with about a dozen detailed outlines and no written stories. For me, making a point-by-point outline is almost the same as writing the story itself. Once I've done the outline, I feel like there's no point writing the actual tale. Part of the writing, for me, is the unpredictability of what's going to pour out of my fingertips and onto the keyboard.

The most I will do -- and I think I've done this two or three times at best -- is write down a few important ideas on sticky notes and put them on the wall in front of me in my office. It could just be a name, or a single line of dialogue, or something else apparently mundane, intended to trigger something when I get to the appropriate part. I rely primarily on my memory, and my memory is pretty damned good. If I don't remember a detail, then it wasn't important enough to put in the story.

I think, for me, part of the reason for an outline is to know when I'm done. You can endlessly tinker with a story, and endlessly re-write what you've got. With an outline, you know you are following your own plan and you known when you've reached the end of that plan.

For me - and I stress that for me - the unpredictability of what comes out of writing is detrimental to actually getting it done. While I write because I want to, I also want the writing to have a destination, have an overarching plot and for me to know "I finished what I set out to do". If I don't have a plan of what this is, I'll never know when I've done it.

Now that does tend to mean I can't always take the detours that it appears all authors have (and thank god it's just me that can't always control their own creations. I thought it was.) when their characters won't behave, but on the other hand, with limited time for writing, sometimes that discipline is a good thing, for me at least.

And I stress this is a personal thing - it's different for everyone. There is no right and wrong. Or write and wrong! Wow, I crack myself up at times.

 

[oggbashan]

I have only really used a full outline once, when I was doing NaNoWriMo which ended up as the 12 chapters of Flawed Red Silk.

I wanted to write a chaptered story that had a beginning and an end with a link running through - the Flawed Red Silk.

My original outline started with Chapter 01 and was going to end with Chapter 36. By the time I had finished and posted Chapter 03 it was obvious that writing 36 chapters during NaNoWriMo was far too ambitious and would be 300,000 or more words instead of 50,000.

I reviewed the outline and deleted 15 or so chapters easily because they were variations of other chapters. Gradually, as I wrote more chapters, I included ideas from the other outlined chapters until I completed NaNoWriMo with only 12 chapters.

I found that specific outline useful in selecting plot and sub-plot ideas, and rejecting others.

The only other time I seriously WROTE an outline was for Earth to Earth. I got myself into a difficult situation with dates of birth for the characters. I had to produce a timeline. I wanted significant events to happen in the early 1930s but on my original draft one of the characters, who had a sickly daughter had herself been born in the mid 1920s - impossible!

Like many pieces of advice, outlines are great if they work for you. If they don't, or become more important than the writing, forget them.

I outline in great detail but in my head, not on paper.

 

[andy_charles]

I have only used outlines on odd occasions; the very problem I have with them is that I feel like I have written the story by writing the outline, therefore I grow bored very quickly with the writing process and move on to other projects while I should be focussed on finishing that one.

If I ever use them, I use small bullet points, such as: - Malcolm meets Sarah; - The party; - Lesbian scene between Sarah and Trish...and so on and so on.

For me, it's just better to have the story points in my head and work from that, rather than anything else.

And to answer a question earlier: I agree that having a title first really helps to create the story.

 

[sr71plt]

I have only used outlines on odd occasions; the very problem I have with them is that I feel like I have written the story by writing the outline, therefore I grow bored very quickly with the writing process and move on to other projects while I should be focussed on finishing that one.

Agree with this. I write the stories for the enjoyment of discovery. It's not a chore to plod through in an organized fashion.