February 27th, 2011

Outline Issues

Do you ever write outlines for written pieces before you write them? The last 4 words of that sentence seem redundant, but they actually aren’t for me. The only time I do an outline is after I have a working draft of a story. I call them “story maps,” partly because I like having my own terminology for stuff, partly because since it’s an outline of a thing that exists, it’s mapping the terrain rather than charting a course (as an outline would be). Story maps are a great way to see if your pacing is messed up (if your outline reads, “pages 3-4: describe room,” that’s a bad sign) and if you are putting the emphasis where you want it to (see previous example).

Even after-draft outlines are pretty rare; I don’t usually outline at all. My excuse is that everything I write is pretty short, less than 20 pages, so I can keep it pretty well clear in my mind without having to make any notes. I’m pretty sure, if I wrote a novel it would have to be different, but then again, maybe that’s just why I’ve never successfully written a novel–I’m just not an outliner.

I’m working on an essay right now that needed an outline as part of the review process. Even though I obsessed about it for ages, looking up “essay outlines” online, and got some good advice from Scott, I *could not* write the outline until I had gotten a good chunk of the essay draft written. The essay draft actually sucked quite hard, and now that I have written a lovely outline and had it approved, I am vigorously rewriting the draft to coincide with what I actually outlined. But I needed that sort of lame “warm-up” writing to even know how I want the essay to be. Weird, eh?

I haven’t written a proper essay in a while (what’s on this blog being very improper indeed). Now that I’m back in this mode, I recall doing this sort of thing in school, even grad school: you research, you make notes, and then you start basically at random and write until you have a good idea–then you go on from there trying to shape an essay, and later go back and scrap everything you wrote upt until that point. This is a pretty inefficient way to do things, but really it’s just thinking on the keyboard, and it makes me feel productive.

Does it sound smug or misguided (or both) to say I feel lucky that I’m not one of those writers who can’t put down a sentence until they’re sure it’s brilliant? If I were that sort, I don’t know if I’d ever write anything; most of what I write, even at my most inspired, requires huge revising. I wish I could outline properly, because I think it would save me some time, but I don’t really mind my process (except in outline-required circumstances). I’ve always thought a certain percentage of willingness-to-revise could be substituted for actual brilliance. At least, I hope it works that way.