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.

 

[Mogador]

This thread has helped me understand that one of the reasons my fiction has been dying on the vine for two years has been an ill advised descent from winging it into outlining. Thanks.

 

[Amontillado]

This thread has helped me understand that one of the reasons my fiction has been dying on the vine for two years has been an ill advised descent from winging it into outlining. Thanks.

Never use what doesn't work, I'm on the same page with you there.

Part of what some people see in outlining has to do with method. How the outline is created and the purpose it serves while writing.

What free form (winging it) process works for you?

 

[Naomasa298]

What process works for you?

Outlining works for me, and increases writing productivity.

 

[Homer Potvin]

I've never outlined. I can't imagine it being helpful for me, but I can see why others do it. But it can get to be an ouroboros of world-building and plans and decorations for a lot of people where that's all they do and never write a lick. The actual writing is an independent skill that has nothing to do with the outlining, worldbuilding, planning or whatever in my opinion. It's not like the ideas and plans are the hard part and the writing the easy part. Complete opposite for me. No lack of ideas or worldbuilding things in my repertoire, but very few viable literary paths at the actual word level.

What I do do is jot down scene ideas and dialogue lines and randoms bits of imagery. And in the bottom of the document where I'm writing, I have the next half dozen potential scenes bullet pointed. I may not use them, but there always there for me to reference and decide in which direction i want the current scene to go. Or if maybe I want to write one of the other scenes first. While it may be out of order, there could be a bit of information that comes out there that would retrofit an earlier scene better.

 

[Naomasa298]

Outlining shouldn't really be about worldbuilding and all that crap. For me, it's about setting plot beats, the purpose and outcome of each scene and results to write towards. If I know I need to have a relationship break by the middle of the story, so that the rest of the story can get to where it needs to be, I'll put that into the outline, so that I'm writing towards that. I'm writing scenes out of order at the moment, because I know exactly what each one needs to do.

That way, I can avoid all that "my characters want to do something else" nonsense.

Maybe it works better for short stories.

 

[Homer Potvin]

Maybe it works better for short stories.

Yeah, I'd imagine so. Far fewer ingredients and moving parts.

 

[Stuart Dren]

My first outline is never good enough. At some point, be it 1/3/ or 1/2 through, some significant structural changes are needed, as well as liberally going off the god damn chain.

I totally sympathise with the mental effect that creating an outline has: "Okay, the creative part is done now." However silly it sounds, I fall for that time and time again.

 

[Amontillado]

But it can get to be an ouroboros of world-building and plans and decorations for a lot of people where that's all they do and never write a lick. The actual writing is an independent skill that has nothing to do with the outlining, worldbuilding, planning or whatever in my opinion. It's not like the ideas and plans are the hard part and the writing the easy part.

I agree. My idea of an outline is a sparse trail of breadcrumbs through the story, which may be of more use to group notes by chapter than detailed story planning.

Also, think about non-fiction. If I have a note about the properties of T6 aluminum, I want that note to be associated with every chapter in the outline where T6 aluminum's properties are relevant. There are probably a zillion ways to make that happen in various utilities like Obsidian.

Click on a chapter in the outline, see all the relevant information, preferably hiding everything else. I think that will help an outline become an assistance to writing.

 

[defaux]

a living outline.

This is how I've always viewed it.

I'll outline the basic story arc, usually try to plan the overall structure - which might be scenes or sections, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, whatever. And the key beats and emotions that need to be hit, which might be like

Day 1
Sally is excited about going to school
Sally gets teased
Sally feels sad and lonely

Sometimes I list target word counts, like it might be 500 words per scene over 4 scenes for a 2000 word short. This helps guide the necessary depth while detailing the above scenes/beats.

However this is all flexible. Others have used words like map or guideline which are apt.
I know I'm not going to hit exactly 500 words, but if I'm only hitting 200, I know I need to expand, or vice versa.

And if I've written that scene but something interesting comes up, and maybe Sally doesn't feel sad at the end because a new friend came to make her feel better... well, then we tweak the next scene to fit the "improved version".

For shorts, I'll typically just write through it into the first draft and go from there. But working on my novel, after the first few chapters I realised the timeline was not going to work as planned, so I reworked the subsequent chapter outlines into a more compressed timeline that fits, and add a time jump at the start of the next section so it still makes sense.

Point being, the outline isn't lego instructions, and it can change and evolve with your story as you write. I find having one really helps delineate small goals and direction while putting the words down.

 

[Luxuria]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your work is probably considerably higher than any fanfiction standards.

Hello everyone! I have been busy last week, so I am sorry I have been absent. But anyway, thank you @Kallisto for your kind words.

First this happens. Then this happens. Then that happens. And because this happened, another thing happened.

Okay, that might work well. Because writing it like some kind of deterministic outline, might work. (Why am I liking philosophy now that I am not in that college class?)

They don't have to be long. Some of my scenes are as short as two sentences. These scenes may or may not end up in the final draft. But it gets me working with the characters and feels more like I'm actually writing.

This sounds like a good idea. It's kinda how I do the 'scene list'. Just out of order, but maybe more structure can make an outline possible.

YWriter is a really good program to write like this.

Oh, I have heard of this! But I use Scrivener, which seem similar. But I just looked at it and wow! It looks awesome. I might have to try it out.

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.

Oh... this is genius!! I love this. I will have to do this!

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.

Again, this is something I am going to do. I think it being a LIVING outline would solve a lot of problems. I love it.

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.

Yeah, I think it's in how I view outlines. Because you're right. I was viewing it as a set-thing. I need to view it all as flexible.

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

Interesting. I don't know what the mission statement of my stories are, but they have one. Haha.

My first outline is never good enough. At some point, be it 1/3/ or 1/2 through, some significant structural changes are needed, as well as liberally going off the god damn chain.

I understand. Because the same thing happens to me. I end up halfway through and realize I need to go back and make structural changes.

Point being, the outline isn't lego instructions, and it can change and evolve with your story as you write. I find having one really helps delineate small goals and direction while putting the words down.

I think you're right. This is how I need to approach outlines from now on.

 

[Schism]

It's important to let yourself explore even if you've outlined, maybe it's within a specific scene, or whatever. The creative process shouldn't be so entirely constrained that you can't let yourself deviate from an outline.