Outlining

This was a topic that came up yesterday on another blog I frequent. The blogger in question is a professional editor and writer, with a lot more experience (and sales, to be honest) than I have. His view is that outlining, whether in detail or in the general overview sense, is essential for writing.

I disagree, and for good reason: I've done it both ways. Both ways work, depending on the circumstances.

I replied to the thread by comparing outlining to using a map vs. using a GPS. The GPS is like the full, detailed outline; it gets you exactly where you're going by the best/shortest/fastest route. If you deviate, it recalculates and gets you back on track. Detailed outlines are like that. The problem with them, however, is that they constrict your freedom to just write the story.

Using a map is like a general outline; you have a rough idea of where you're going, but how you get there is up to you. The map gives you plenty of options, all of which can eventually get you to your destination. How you get there, of course, is entire up to you, but at least you know what the final goal is.

But sometimes, you don't need a map or a GPS; you just get in the car and start to drive, not caring where you end up. It's the whole 'the journey is the destination' idea, but you are going to end up somewhere, even if you have no clue where that somewhere will be until you get there. It's freeform exploration; in writing, it's writing into the dark, or gardening, or whatever term is preferred. Basically, it's writing without an outline and just letting the creative mind take the story wherever seems to make the most sense.

So, I've actually done all three of these methods before. A book I wrote GPS-style would be Apprentice. This one was a story idea that I had for a long time, and I'd put the story beats in a reasonably coherent order in my mind many years prior. When I wrote it, I didn't deviate from that mental outline very much. I knew where the story was going, I knew what the next stage was at the end of every chapter, and I knew that it was going to work out the way it did. But I liked the story enough that it was easy to write it and get there. Another example would be In the Beginning, but that's a bit of a cheat, since God wrote that plot a long, long time ago.

The second method is the map version. This one I use roughly half of the time, to varying degrees. Crimson Moon and Crystal Lilac, for example, both fall into this category, albeit leaning toward the GPS method. Mind you, like Apprentice, I'd already written the book, except not in my head; I literally wrote this story twenty-five years ago. I rewrote it and changed quite a bit this year, but I had the main outline of the story in my head the whole time. As I got through Crystal Lilac, more and more actually changed from the original idea, although the final destination was always the same.

Other examples of this would be Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System. Not the whole thing, but I figured out fairly early on that the book's stories would all take place on or around a different part of the solar system, so it was a matter of linking the stories together in a way that would make sense. But the individual stories? Freeform exploration all the way.

Then there are the books that just flowed from my creative mind without prompting. The Missing Magnate is the quintessential example. Written in just eleven days with zero outline or any clue as to what I was going to write about except the two main characters, it worked. I trusted my creative mind wholeheartedly, and let it run free. And it worked just as well as its predecessor, Final Exam, which (like Apprentice) I already had written in GPS-form a long time ago in my mind. The other published Cameron Vail mysteries, Best Served Cold and Cold Star, were likewise written without an outline of any sort.

So, the question of outlining really boils down to this: It depends. Some writers do it religiously, some avoid it completely. Some go GPS, some go with just the map. And some, like myself, use whatever works best in the moment. Because in the end, it's not the outline that makes the difference, it's the writing.