My first goal is to hammer all this down into a premise: a single sentence that conveys the plot and the theme. I almost always have ideas for several main characters, a handful scenes, a general conflict, and at least a sense of what the ending will be. Premiseīy the time, I sit down to begin work on a story, it’s usually been chasing around in my head for at least a year or two. I fill up at least a notebook or two up with my scrawlings, and over the years, I’ve developed a handful of steps. I’m probably one of the more in-depth outliners. Outlines take many forms-some of them a few sentences scrawled on a Post-It Note, some of them notebooks full of ramblings. The only difference is that the outliner’s process takes maybe a quarter of the time. Outliners and seat-of-the-pantsters alike go through this process. It’s the “mistake” draft, the dry-eraser board where we all throw out our ideas and see how they line up on the page. They feel that if they already know what happens in the story, why should they bother writing that first draft? In a way, however, an extensive outline is a first draft. Many writers feel that outlining stifles their creativity. When all I have to do to know where I’m going is look at my map, I rarely have to waste valuable time and brain cells staring slack-jawed at the blinking cursor.Īdmittedly, as perfect as outlining is for me, it’s not perfect for everyone. It’s also a sure-fire antidote for writer’s block. It’s much easier to spend a few weeks rewriting an outline than it is to spend a few months to a year rewriting an entire draft.īecause I’m already familiar with each pit stop along the road of my novel-thanks to my road map-it’s much easier for me to visualize the big picture and to realize what each scene must do to play its part. I’d much rather know where I’m going from the beginning, rather than trying to force my foreshadowing and plot twists into the text somewhere in my second draft. I hate rewriting I hate watching my burst of pride and relief at the end of a novel dissipate in a realization of a hole-riddled plot.
Generally speaking, writers fall into two different categories: outliners and non-outliners (or, as my friend Linda has dubbed them, “seat-of-the-pantsters”).
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