How to stay excited about a work after outlining?

[Amontillado]

Outlines always killed my stories. Changing how I outline seems to have cured that.

I (recently) like the idea of a living outline. Keep the outline open while you write.The outline reminds you of where you want the story to go and it will help keep things consistent.

The outline doesn't have to be a Harvard indented list. Use a mindmap, a series of index cards, or the synopsis feature in Scrivener.

Jot notes down in your outline as you discover new things in your story. The reason for doing that is so things like foreshadowing make sense. Plus, I get overeager if I get ideas I should have thought of before. The outline gives me a place to park ideas without running off the rails.

Never abandon discovery writing. Just do it with an outline. Obviously, your mileage may vary considerably.

I can't wait to finish my current project so I can give my recent outlining ideas a workout.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

I find outlines (and beat sheets, too) helpful.

When the outline is done, don't think of it as a cage. The outline tells you what happened. The beat sheet (depending on how much detail you go into) tells you how it happened (and your protagonist's character arc). But here's the kicker: none of this is set in stone.

I don't mean "rip it up and start again". But your ideas can be 'nudged', i.e. if you start telling the story, and (say) in chapter 7 you realize that what you wrote makes no sense - for instance, an encounter with a certain character shouldn't happen until [ABC-XYZ] - then you can "nudge" that encounter to a place where it does make sense.

Also, having a written outline doesn't mean that you can't have new ideas for the story. I'm constantly 'nudging' bits around in my current WIP, based on new ideas and comments from my critique partner. He's constantly telling me, for instance: "This knowledge is unearned - she shouldn't know this", or "Why are they walking when they have a boat? Here's an idea, but you'll need to edit your previous chapter..." and so on.

I'm currently 'nudging' things around for the reveal that a secondary character isn't quite what he/she/it appears to be. I've written at least two drafts about how it happens, depending on various ideas. Now, I'm just piecing them together and seeing what works, like a jigsaw puzzle ... and then asking my critique partner: what do you think?

Sorry for my long answer. I know I sometimes go on and on. But that's why I think outlines are useful.

 

[Naomasa298]

It depends how you think when you write. If you treat an outline as a clear goal to write towards, it's not hard to arrive at without changing it significantly, in my experience. Tight and detailed plotting makes that easier, and that's often down to scene level. The more vague the outline is, the more room there is for plot drift. Which is not, in itself, a flaw.

 

[Amontillado]

This morning I saw two videos about writing essays (essaying?) as a means for learning. One video would have been chance. Two is a clear indication my intelligently artificial overlords are showing me a sign.

Which got me to thinking about writing processes.

You can't outline without ideas, and ideas have to mean something. I plan to start a fresh project in a month or so.

I'll use an outline, but is that really where to start? Riffing on the essay for learning idea, maybe I should write an analysis first. "This book explores the dissonance between students driven to learn and the class bullies whose approval they paradoxically seek..."

Mission statement, then outline, then bidirectional feedback between outline and draft. It might work.