The Processes of Writing: The Use, Lack, and Potency of Planning and Outlines · 6:43am Feb 7th, 2016
The process of writing is as subjective as the product. Sometimes, however, hearing about the creative process of others can be interesting. It might help one consider things that you had not. It might give one insight into one’s own creative process. It might reaffirm why one does things the way they do.
For today’s blog post, I’d like to discuss the different degrees of planning/outlining I use.
How a story is outlined and planned affects how it is told. Planning out a story imparts structure to it, helps give the author a clear direction. Too much planning, however, can make the story feel artificial, rob of it naturalism and verisimilitude.
As a general rule, I think the longer a story is, the more planning should be involved. If you intend to make a cohesive narrative, then obviously length is going to be a major factor. This is perhaps one of the most important things I learned from publishing fanfiction: writing a story without any plan at all only leads to disaster.
But what do these different gradients of outline look like?
At the bare minimum, we have what I call the conceptual visualization. This is basically the idea represented the story; “What if one wrote a story about how time travel sucked?” or similar. This type of plan tends to be the rudimentary building block of other plans, but sometimes it can turn into a story by itself. “A pony swears loudly” is one I turned into a story, for example. Generally any story that begins and ends its planning at this stage tends to be experimental and short.
The next level up is what I call the linked scenes. My muse is both inconsistent and pushy; when I mull over story, often scenes will pop into my head without context. Things like Luna stumbling upon graffiti, or an explorer hacking through vines. This level of outline is about gathering enough of these scenes, and then linking them together to form a narrative. This also lends itself to stories that are short, since it makes the connections between scenes more naturalistic.
The highest level of planning I do is an extension of the previous one. Rather than letting my muse hand me scenes, I actively construct major plot points and combine those with any scenes I might have been handed.
Naturally, this is only a brief overview: summarizing every step involved in planning a story is impossible, because it involves too many different things. Additionally, I’m still learning and experimenting. I’m currently working on an outline of a novel, and in addition to the above planning of major plot points and linking events, I also made a dramatis personae (something I almost never do). One could even say that for character stories, a dramatis personae and character traits are more important than an actual outline.
Issac Asimov once (in)famously remarked that he did not plan his stories: he only figured out the beginning and the ending, and let the part between the two work itself out. Judging by his output, it worked for him quite well. Yet we aren't Issac Asimov. There are as many degrees, variations, and gradations of outline as there are authors. Like all all aspects of authorship, how one uses outlines is a subjective process.
How does your own creative process intersect with (or ignore) the use of outlines? Do you vary your approach depending on the length of the story? Or is there other factors and elements that your plans revolve around?
Thanks for reading. Be sure to check out my previous process post, if you missed it: The Use of Music.
I agree that there are many different styles for this, and in fact have used several myself. My main story is almost completely unplanned besides "I'd like to get them here, and after that we'll see what happens." Sometimes I'll spend several chapters moving everyone into the proper positions, but otherwise the only things I have planned out are what I'm adding next. In fact, I didn't expect to spend anywhere near this amount of time on the story. Then we have things like the one-shots, where I actually write out the entire plot on a piece of scrap paper. I'll add details later, sure, but otherwise it's all already set up.
"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I find outlining my stories tends to get me to recognize flaws and better stories that can be told based on the same idea. I then write the story and sometimes deviate from my outline, and sometimes stick to it, but I generally find that when I outline stuff, things tend to end up better paced as I can recognize issues with pacing from the get-go. It also forces me to identify the climax of my story, and make sure that there is some sort of point to it all, rather than just being an idea that doesn't go somewhere.
My own outlines take the form of basically me telling the story in broad strokes, with specific points being noted, and sometimes significant lines of dialogue or turning points being written down outright.
I wing it as the beginning and the end are in my head.
I find it's easier to stray from the path when I have one to stray from.
My usual method has me write out a bulleted list of the desired plot points I want the story or chapter to cover. From there, I sound out dialogue, usually while walking around the neighborhood, and making sure it both flows and feels in-character. Once the dialogue is all put onscreen before I can forget it, it's fleshed out with description and polished until I can no longer see the worst flaws.
For larger stories, scenes may be written achronically, depending on how and where inspiration strikes.
3738444 I used to write scenes out of order, but I found it created more work than it avoided. If the scenes don't match--and they rarely do because of my looser writing style--rewriting the scene is as much work as the initial draft was.
3738285 "spend[ing] several chapters moving everyone into the proper positions" is the main reason that I don't go without plans anymore. Transitional chapters are usually very boring to read, and they also tend to feel forced. I try to minimize or remove them whenever possible.
There are plot points that warrant a lot of setup, of course, but it still needs to be naturalistic and interesting.
3738920 oh, I didn't mean nothing happened. I wanted to get to the Everfree from the other side of the world, so Cim went on a diplomatic mission. Things were still happening all the time, and characters were still learning about each other in the meantime.hell, I added a character on a spur of the moment idea. It's worked out well IMO.