How to Think About Outlining
How much should I outline? How detailed should my outline be?
Lisa Gardner, in Plotting the Novel: Otherwise Known as The Real Reason Writers are Neurotic, writes:
And finally, you may complete this process only to discover that now that you have outlined the story, you have no interest in writing it. That means outlining is not for you. You are probably an “out-of-the-mist” writer, meaning that the story must be unfolding fresh for you to be interested in telling it. That’s okay as well. Some of the best writers out there are out-of-the-mist writers. The trick is to discover which method of writing works best for you.
This ‘two styles of writer’ distinction is known in writing circles as ‘Plotters vs. Pantsers’. Plotters plan and outline; Pantsers write ‘by the seat of their pants’, by sitting down and writing.
What’s different between these two positions? Several things:
• The Plotter must still write her draft. In fact, that’s one downside to being a plotter: you can confuse writing the outline with writing the story, even tell yourself that the story’s done.
• The Pantser is more likely to write herself into a corner, to not know what comes next.
• The Pantser finishes her first draft. It contains all that knowledge needed to rewrite a second draft, but it’s diffused, spread throughout the prose. She has to edit much more extensively than if she worked from a good outline.
• Here’s the killer: the Pantser had to face a blank page every day in order to get through that draft. She often worked without a net, not knowing where her story was going. The plotter did too- while she was writing her outline. But there is a big difference in writing a few pages of outline and in writing a 200-page draft. The outline is more tractable. That’s what makes Pantsing a plotting issue.
The gap between these two perspectives, and the answer to the original questions, is to outline as little as possible to get to an effective first draft. The trick is to develop an effective workflow, one that gets you to the writing as quickly and efficiently as possible.