Outliner

Outliner or “pantser?”

I’m an outliner. It’s saved my life. After reading numerous books on writing fiction and attending conferences, workshops, and classes I’ve taken the bits and pieces that work for me as a guide through the hundreds of pages of a novel.

Yep…the shuffled 3×5 cards with scenes scribbled upon them.

But I find the outlines aren’t as restrictive as pantsers fear. In a way, it frees me up since I don’t have to stress over what comes next. I know what I’m writing toward. And I still get surprises. Characters intervene that I didn’t know were part of the story when I began outlining. Scenes combine or separate as needed. I delete cards or add scenes that weren’t captured on a card. The outline is flexible. Like an old fashioned paper map — the freeway is clearly marked, but the tempting side roads are there to explore.

Not to say I don’t pants it. That seems to occur while I’m researching the story. I take notes in composition books and always set aside pages for ideas as they come to me. Sometimes the ideas work, sometimes not. And they often evolve over the process of forming the novel.

For me, once I know the major plot points I can imagine the scenes needed to arrive at and depart from those points. Yet each scene is an unknown until it hits the page. I may know ahead of time what I want to happen. But I never know how it will happen until fine-point pen moves across the 3-hole punched binder paper. Even with an outline, each day’s writing is a bit of a revelation.