As for the subject of today's post, I wanted to talk about something that I'm still trying very hard to figure out. Outlining is, and always has been, one of the weaker parts of the writing process as far as my skill is concerned. I think this comes, in part, from a personality trait that I am well aware of. I've never been one to plan out much, and have a slight (read: not so slight) aversion to doing so. It's something I'm trying to overcome in more aspects of my life than just writing, but making life decisions about characters is much easier and lets me avoid doing the same for myself. At least for now. So without further ado, we'll get started.
Outlining is a skill set that many writers preach for various reasons. Not the least of which is its use as a guide for the important parts of a written piece. Whether you're writing a short article or a novel, knowing even the general progression of events or thoughts is a tremendous help to the entire process. I also believe (though have no personal proof yet) that though it takes extra time to make the outline, once you have that for the piece, the rest of it can be finished far more quickly.
More than that, having that guide and perhaps even knowing the ending lets the piece function as a more cohesive whole. While using the outline you can guarantee that gets written into a piece will be driving towards that end goal. No matter what the subject matter, almost every piece of writing should be solid in itself and any piece of writing that wanders too often will lose most readers' attention. That's not to say that you have to stick to the outline as if it is a final commandment, but it is undeniably useful to have some form of guiding light in the darkness of an unfinished piece. Or even more so to carry a writer through the horrid wasteland that is the blank page.
There are many ways to outline in writing, and I'll touch on a few, but the important thing to note is that you have to find what works for you and stick with that. Jim Butcher, author extraordinaire and a personal favorite of mine, has a very handy and quite nifty guide to the writing process on his blog. Start with the bottom one and work your way up to get the full story (so to speak). The entries in his blog cover more than just outlining, but what he does speak of outlining can be very useful to a beginning, or even well practiced, writer. One way to outline that he speaks of is to draw an arch over a large piece of paper and make a tick mark for every important event in the story. Rising action on the left, the piece in the middle that starts toward the resolution, and the denouement itself on the right.
I will say, I've tried this, but I'm not someone who does things well in a hand written manner. For this reason, I find using a word processing software easier. Simply open one up, and use bullet points (as I'll demonstrate below) to mark off the major events, smaller events, and whatever you feel is important to the narrative. Another idea is to make an index card of each event and string them together or lay them out. All of these are good starters, but that's all they need to be. Give one a try, and if you find you don't like it, or it simply doesn't work for you, don't hesitate to try a different one. You could even go back to an old piece and write an outline once you've finished it to show yourself the way you would define what is important and what is less so.
However, it is important to note that not everyone is an outliner nor does everyone need to be. Discovery writing, the act of figuring out plot elements as you write them, is a valid way to write a work. In my opinion, however, discover writing can only take you so far. It is very difficult, for me at the very least, to keep all the events that have happened in earlier parts, or any that I can think of but I haven't reached yet in mind as I'm writing. An outline gives you a handy reference sheet. Even if the details aren't exact, it is often enough to jog your memory and let you continue writing without having to go back to what you already wrote.
For my own uses, outlining has been working well, but I would like to refine the process. By that I mean take less time to get from the start of the outline to the end of a piece, outline in different ways (maybe try 3 act, or Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E. Quotient) and find the amount of detail that works best for me. Some people might like to include as much as possible in the outline, or just the very bare bones of it. But regardless of how exactly you do it, outlining gives you the tools you need to keep your writing on track.
I'll leave you with an example outline. Below is the outline I used while writing this post, and, in this case, I followed it basically to the letter. Don't forget to check into All The Good Names Were Taken for a guest post in the next couple of days.
- Intro
- Keith's blog
- Lack of practice outlining
- Why and how
- Uses of outlining
- Why it's important
- Variations and other ways to write
- (Jim Butcher, Discovery Writing)
- Closing
- Ways to improve
- Example
And you say I'm bad at updating.
ReplyDeleteI never said I wasn't bad about doing so, either.
ReplyDeleteWe fail at bloggery.
ReplyDeleteThough one of us failing more at it than the other.
ReplyDelete