Comments on: Outlining before writing your fiction: good idea or bad?

By: What is your writing method? What carries you from blank page to first draft? - Fungible Convictions

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:39:15 +0000

[...] in reflecting more on the whole outlining debate, I dove back into the muck about my own writing method. The fact is, after six years of writerly [...]

By: Writing Yourself Hoarse, or A Study In Banality « adamantine

Writing Yourself Hoarse, or A Study In Banality « adamantine — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:43:16 +0000

[...] I’m still groping with method. I’ve written myself hoarse, I think. Having written a sprawling first draft without outlining first -this is one of the great insoluble debates for writers, like the whole Emacs vs. vi thing- I find myself using the existing material to belatedly scratch out an outline. [...]

By: Sandra Scoppettone

Sandra Scoppettone — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:51:09 +0000

I didn’t conflate the lives of characters. What I did was to put two men with the same two women to do the same thing. When I went back to see how to fix it it turned out to be quite simple. I put one of the men with some other people. Not a big deal. So I had to rewrite. Rewriting is not a problem for me. I actually thought what I’d done was more to do with memory than anything else. And I guess I didn’t make it clear that I basically thought it was funny. If you don’t know my sense of humor how could you know?

I don’t outline. I’d rather be dead. If I’d outlined this I don’t think the situation would’ve happened but I don’t think anything would’ve happened. I agree with Lisa, “Whatever works for you”.

By: Andrew Whitacre

Andrew Whitacre — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 02:46:22 +0000

Idea for future post: bottles on procrastinating writers’ desks. For me it’s 15-year Balvenie (and also, though not a bottle, a tub of Boy Scout-marketed caramel popcorn).

By: Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 02:30:39 +0000

I usually outline when I have no desire to finish a piece. It’s a ploy, a mental trick, to generate interest in the subject and it always fails.

In my files, I have at least three novels with 50-100 page outlines and accompanying notes. They are depressing to look at. Every once in awhile I bring them out. After lining up their neat little stacks on the table, I break out the bottle and have a drink with them.

“Here’s to you, boys! Months of wasted time!”

If I successfully avoid the desire to outline, that means I’m still interested in the project. For me, it’s got to be a fluid process, seeing what I’m working on, and riffing off of that work.

By: Lisa Pease

Lisa Pease — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 18:21:00 +0000

I’ve written fiction and non-fiction material. I’ve done it both ways – with an outline, and without an outline.

Invariably, INVARIABLY, my pieces are better when I outline first. I have lots of writer friends who say oh, don’t outline, it just stifles your creativity. After having tried it their way I call bullshit! Whatever works for you is what works for you. But what works for me is absolutely, 100%, outlining. I’m paying the price now on a script now where I didn’t outline enough to begin, and now I’m struggling. It was so much more fun to write my previous script, which I outlined heavily. When I sat down to write, things just flowed because I knew where I was going.

Now, I changed the story in the outlined script. But I changed the outline first, and rewrote. Again – so much easier. I really can’t recommend outlining enough now, having been done both paths!