A while back, I saw some discourse about outlining.
Now this started due to a post about George R.R. Martin and his delay on the next book for his Game Of Thrones series. There was this sort of smug superiority going on that if he just had an outline that he’d have finished. After all, several posters pointed out, THEY had finished books!
Now, as one person asked, were any of these people bestsellers or had contracts worth money? Or even published?
Err… no. Several even admitted that their books ‘weren’t ready yet for the public’.
Granted, having a contract or a bestseller doesn’t make you a better writer than anyone else. That’s a given. It makes you someone who caught the eye of an agent and publisher with a marketable book. But that caveat aside… okay so if you read anything I write about writing you would know that I heavily dislike anyone who claims superiority but doesn’t actually do anything in the arena they’re supposed to be superior about. This situation smacks of some weird superiority I still can’t make sense of.
There are benefits to both. I’m just going to do a short oversight of my opinion.
The (brief) Pros and Cons of Outlining:
Outlining chapter by chapter can give you a guiding light to keep you on track. You’ll know the path as you set foot on it. You can keep yourself on the straight path. Focusing on the ending you know is the right one.
Outlining using flashcards and doc files is the simplest method. I find outlining to be like mapping out a journey using Google Maps: you pick your stops in advance, you know where you are going, and you are less likely to get diverted.
But.
Outlining can be so restrictive you don’t actually finish a novel. Or story. Because as you write and it doesn’t fit, doesn’t work, and you don’t know what to do. You laid it out, after all. It should work! <input scream of rage and grief here>
I have absolutely been there. And it is exasperating. Because an outline is like a pre-first draft. And first drafts are still yourself telling the story, so the outlines can have the same problem of you don’t see the full scope yet.
Some writers are so restrictive they won’t leave the outline for anything. A problem I’ve seen is that the writers who follow outlines in a strict manner can write in a way that feels stilted. It’s hitting each beat…but it’s noticeable.
If you need an outline, use it. Be open to change though to avoid frustration.
The (brief) Pros and Cons of Pantsing
Those of us with a chaotic nature take pleasure in pantsing. Partly out of sheer lunacy, I think at times, but that’s many writers. Stories that burst outward and refuse to stick to any path, that we follow like a small child holding the leash of an enormous bloodhound, writers who just shuck their protective training wheels crow about superiority, of living through the story like a worshiper to a pagan god.
Heck, I’ve done it before. I’ve loved pantsing and outlining.
Pantsing is fun, there’s no argument against that. It is like being a child with finger paint. You splash colour everywhere and you are delighted at its chaos.
Good stories come from pantsing. In the chaos, there is a strong element of free “flow” where a creative state can come to play easier than before. There is less rigidity, more freedom, fewer barriers, etc etc. Many artists regardless of medium engage in this less-structured approach and there are many who follow it that produce great original content.
But.
Pantsing has its problems. You can get very off-track, to the point you abandon a story. You lose a sense of structure with pantsing at times so you can end up far away from the story and you have to rein it in, which can be very difficult. You get to the end and have no idea how to end anything because you forget where you came from. Several writers I know struggle to finish their books because their inspiration is gone. You can get stuck frequently pantsing when your ‘muse’ drifts away to play somewhere else. Editing is a nightmare because instead of cleaning up and stitching the story, you are performing a massive overhaul.
The very thing that can make you dislike outlining is the very thing you need and you won’t want to do it.
The Compromise
What I propose to most writers (and I have to lump myself in this category), is to do both. Don’t adhere to some dogmatic belief that either is superior. Save yourself a lot of problems with that and ignore the online screeching that one is better and you are going to suck if you do the other. You won’t.
Write a bare-bones outline. Start with your beginning: here is where is, who is involved, and what you will see. No more than a page. Write in your middle (where all of us sag) to provide a turning point to work toward. No more than a page. Then outline your ending: lessons learned, who dies/lives, who falls in love, and the big payoff. No more than a page.
Then within that very loose framework, write. Use it as your guiding light and free-write as needed. Develop things organically. Try to let your outline inspire you, not confine you.
Because when you get to the end, you are going to edit it. Over and over again. Then it goes to someone else to edit. So you will have time to take the lump of a story and mold it further. But you won’t get to do that if your story never comes together.
Try pantsing. Try outlining. Try doing them together. And let me know how you do. Does one work for you more than the other?