The Evolution of Outlining

The great and powerful Scarlett has already blogged at length about this, but I thought I'd offer my two cents as well.

There are very different schools of thought among writers as far as whether one should outline a story - and to what extent - prior to writing it. And by "very different schools of thought", I mean "fiery passionate hatred for anyone who does the other way". If you want to watch the sparks fly on a writing forum, just show up and say "Anyone who outlines is a creatively stifled douchebag" or "Anyone who doesn't outline is a loose cannon and completely doomed to literary failure". This always results in heated discussions, and no one can execute a flame war like a thread full of pissed off writers.

Now, Scarlett and I should, for this reason, hate each other. I outline. She doesn't. She sums our unspoken non-aggression pact thusly: "She does, I don't. Never the twain shall meet, but somehow we manage to stay friends. I reckon it's down to the regular swappage of photos of hot guys, but some make allegations of mutual respect and professional admiration. Pshaw, I say."

Bottom line? Different strokes.

However...as she discussed in this blog entry, some writers evolve from strict outliners to "meh, we'll see what happens"...and with positive results. And I think she's onto something.

Because I'm most familiar with my own writing habits, I'll use myself as an example.

My first book, Sins of the Father, - a 125K tome of fantasy fail - was outlined down to the last hair standing up on someone's neck. That outline was easily 30-40 pages, single-spaced. This says nothing of countless reams of notes about this or that scene, how these people interact, character outlines, etc. And after outlining to that extent, you'd better believe that I was going to shoehorn my characters into following it, even if one said, "You know, maybe we should go this way..." I occasionally made minor changes, such as killing a character off in a different chapter and manner than previously planned...and those minor changes usually caused significant improvement. Tiny ripples of win in an otherwise calm pool of fail. You would think that I would take note of this and be more open, but no. I wedged my story into my outline, and the resulting mess will likely be trunked and never revisited. (Well, I may revisit it...someday...)

Then Camera Shy came along. My outline was a bit looser, but not by much. When I came to some scenes that made my characters balk, I gently persuaded them (with angry rotteweilers and, failing that, Tasers) to proceed as the outline dictated. They did, but the result was not great.

In the end, though, there is a scene in which Jason is called upon to dispense forgiveness and allow the story to be resolved. But the stubborn son of a bitch wouldn't do it. I mean, he just wouldn't. So, I took a deep breath, let him be a bull-headed butt, and added an additional scene wherein he would do so.

And he still wouldn't.

It took a third scene for him to finally stop being an ass. And - sit up and take notice, author of Camera Shy - it worked much better.

"Hmm," says me in the wake of this epiphany. "Maybe my outlines should be a bit more flexible."

The outline for my next book was more flexible. The next was even more so. By the time I got to Between Brothers, the outline was little more than a list of scenes with a vague "this happens because of that" for each. As each chapter was written, the rest of the story came to light...including a minor character that was added when the book was 2/3 written, then became a significant character and ended up requiring 7 chapters instead of 1.

Part of the outlining controversy is also about writing in-depth character profiles. I mean, charting a character down to their last freckle and favorite song. I used to do this. I stopped after Sins of the Father. I still wrote a lot about my characters before writing the story, but it wasn't quite so in-depth. With each book, I do less of this. My OCD doesn't particularly care for this approach, but I pacify it with the occasional task of organizing my My Documents folder to anal-retentive extremes.

By the time I got to Rules of Engagement, I barely planned my characters at all. I knew their names and a few general details. I had no idea that one of my main characters had a doctorate, a sweet spot for dogtags, and a life-changing experience on his twenty-first birthday. All three of those things ended up playing important roles in the story, but I didn't know about them when I started writing it.

I'm now working on book #10, Breaking the Rules, and this has to be the loosest outline I've ever, ever used. I have a conflict, a vague list of scenes with major plot points noted, but in general, I'm letting the characters take the reins. I'm giving them complete carte blanche to run off with the scenes. (That sound you hear is my OCD screaming for mercy)

In other words, I'm having faith in my characters to do the right thing. "The right thing" being whatever is right for that person to do in a particular situation.

And good Lord, these two are running with it. I had Chris and Kat in a particular situation and something unexpected happened. As in, something I didn't expect to happen. When it did, I thought, well, if I let them run with this, how am I going to get them out of it?

A few months ago, I would have had this scene planned out like a Navy SEALS rescue mission until I knew exactly what would have happened. The unexpected "thing" wouldn't have happened, because it wasn't allowed to happen, and even if it did, their escape would have been planned to the last "oh shit".

But I decided to let them run with it. I gave Chris and Kat the ability to decide how to get out of it, and at the very last possible second, Kat came up with something, and it worked. It was one of those "the character thought of it, not me" moments, because I sure as shit never would have come up with it.

As another example from the same book, Chris makes an offhand comment about Kat in chapter 1, mentioning two things about her that I didn't know. It didn't seem right to let those two points fade into the background, so I went back to the outline and added a couple of scenes wherein they would come into play. When writing one of those scenes, (not to be confused with those scenes(tm)), I learned something significant about Chris that dramatically altered two subsequent scenes...and those two scenes resolved a major problem I'd been struggling with all along. Result!

I think, in a way, my own outlining has evolved from getting point by point driving directions on Mapquest to just making sure to pack a road map in case I get lost: I have a general sense of where I'm going, rather than plotting out every single turn, and I've left room for the occasional side trip if something looks interesting.

There is, of course, no one size fits all when it comes to outlining or not. All I know is that as far as my writing is concerned, the less I outline and the more I listen to my characters, the more my stories happen on their own. And quite honestly, it's made writing a lot more fun. I still know where the story is going and (for the most part) how it will end, but not a single chapter goes by without something surprising me. Invariably, those little tidbits that surprise me also surprise Scarlett and Adam...so that leads me to believe that this is a good thing.

Will it work for everyone? Of course not. But whether you outline or not, I bestow upon you this advice that I have learned the hard way (particularly being the stubborn twit that I am):

Have faith in your characters. They know what to do.