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So, I’d like to hear everyone’s opinions–do you outline your stories or not? If so, what process do you follow? Do you plan every last detail or do you enjoy giving your story a bit of wiggle room? I, for one, detest most forms of outlining and hope my book will turn out decent anyway.
@dekreel @sam-kowal @jenwriter17 @skye @ingridrd @daeus @dragon-snapper @rochellaine @seekjustice @supermonkey42@waterlily I’m kinda in between ‘outliner’ and ‘pantser.’ I use K. M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel and Outlining Your Novel workbooks, which are really cool. But I don’t fill them all out because I don’t like to go into as much detail as she does.
At the end of my plotting and outlining, I like to outline what happens in each chapter; just a quick paragraph so I know what I’m doing. 🙂
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www.jennaterese.com@waterlily I do outline, although not extremely extensively. I pretty much plan the ending of my story first, work back, plan out all the major plot beats and what’s going to happen in the chapters. If I have an idea for a scene or something of the sort, a piece of dialogue I want in, I mark that down, too, to go somewhere in the narrative. Otherwise, I leave some wiggle room for the story. My plotlines can change suddenly and rapidly if they so please…
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My process is very similiar to Sam’s. I do character work and worldbuilding before I start and I use what I refer to as a “20 Step outline” or a “50 Step outline” depending on how long I think the story is going to be. But I do leave a lot of wriggle room and I have a page where I write down random ideas and I sometimes fill in gaps in the outlines with impulsive ideas. 😉 I basically just want a really good idea of where I’m going but I’m happy to switch things around or change orders when I’m writing the draft.
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@waterlily I don’t outline. In my head I usually have a definite ending, a general beginning, and a few middle parts. Then I let it flow and let the characters drive. There have been a few times where I’ve been stuck as to what happens next. When that does happen, I just write a general time line and see where things are stagnant and try to fix that. And that is all. 🙂
"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
@waterlily For me, I love to have a general outline since it often gets me past writer’s block. 🙂
Whenever I have an idea for a story or plot point, I just write up a quick paragraph just so I don’t forget it, then later expand on the idea. Same with character descriptions.
Since I’m nearing the end of one of the series that I’m working on, I have a page-long description of how everything is going to play out, that way I have a goal to work toward.
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I don’t outline at the beginning of a novel unless it’s a novella or something else short that I need to stay on track with. Once I’m several chapters into a full-length novel I start outlining five to ten chapters ahead, which allows things to move naturally. In a series I do that with the first book then do ‘skeleton outlines’ of the next few books – being the main six or eight or someodd events that drive the book. So basically I let my books write themselves and then fix any weirdness when I edit 😀
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@waterlily Nope. I don’t outline before I start. The most I ever do is write a couple of ideas for the next two or three scenes and have a general idea of how the story is probably going to end.
Sometimes it doesn’t turn out the best, but, hey, that’s what editing is for. 🙂
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Compendium of KP Literature: kapeeferliterature.wordpress.com@waterlily I have done a few different types of planning for my stories, but I never can plan the ending first like Sam and SeekJustice do! 😀 In a way that’s cool, because I can have the same anticipation that the readers will have in that I don’t know how the story will end. On the other hand, that also means I usually have no idea how to calculate the length of the story and how long it will take me to finish it.
Looking back over what I have successfully or unsuccessfully done in the past I will say that for short stories and 100-page kids books the bare minimum of planning works pretty well for me. With a novel I feel like I need a bit more thinking ahead to make sure it all makes sense. But I still only have a very general idea of how it will go and usually don’t know what will happen until right before I get there. I just follow the characters.
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@waterlily
I’m a planster. I plan the 5% of my story that counts (not really plan; just like “this happens” then “this” then “this” than done. That’s it) I planned out over 30% of one of my stories and I can’t even get 1000 words through!
On the other hand, I started writing a random story because I was bored and I had no idea what was going to happen next but now I’m having so much fun with it! I think it’s the excitement of not actually knowing whats next. With this story though, I’ve only planned about 1% because I know the main character is going to start a rebellion among the people against the king, and when she get’s to actually killing/imprisoning the kind she finds he’s someone undecided she knows. See? Barely any planning, but it’s crazy fun to write because I want to know what happens next.
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I love outlining (or, at least I love how it works for me) and I don’t think I know anybody who has tried outlining and been disappointed by it. I also know a couple people who have tried outlining and been happy they did.
At the same time, I don’t recommend outlining everything. Your story needs room to evolve. If you outline too deeply, you’ll just have to keep revising your outline, so it doesn’t really make sense.
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I use K.M.Wieland’s outlining system for outlining my novel. I only do basic outlines of chapters when I come to them. I also keep a long bullet list of random ideas for my story and many of these ideas end up getting woven into the plot.
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@waterlily, I have a very interesting style of either I completely plan out the book, or just have a vague idea and go with the flow. there is no in between for me until I have gotten father into it.
I have found it easiest to not outline in the beginning, but as the story progresses to jot down your ideas. But that might just be me
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