by Alina Stecko
The writing process is
different for every writer, we all have our own tactics. Some writers when they
come up with an idea can just write their story without any outlining while
others when an idea hits must write every single detail down.
Maybe it’s just me but
I see outlining and brainstorming as two different techniques. When I think of
outlining I think about planning out the story line character profiles, and
figuring out what’s going to happen between the beginning and the end. Whereas
brainstorming is like the minor tiny details that make up a story.
On a personal note I've tried writing a story that I outlined and brainstormed the whole thing. I knew
how it was going to start, what was going to happen in the middle and how it
was eventually going to end as well as random details about the character’s
life. For some reason this story was
never finished. It sits in a folder on my laptop completely covered in cobwebs
and dust with all the information I had gathered for it before beginning to
write it. This was two years ago and I still can’t seem to figure out what went
wrong. It’s confusing because I know
that if I were to sit down in front of a blank screen with a vague story idea
in my head with no outline I wouldn't be able to write that story either.
When asked whether she
outlined her first novel ‘Die For Me’ young adult writer Amy Plum said that “I
did not outline Die For Me. In fact, I didn't even know what I was going to
write until I sat down in the morning in front of my keyboard. I felt that was
the more “honest” way of telling a completely made-up story like that of the
revenants. However...it also prevented me from sleeping. For a whole summer.
Which I would definitely count as a drawback.” She did note that for her second
and third novels that she did have to plan them out a bit more because it was a
trilogy and so they had to have a constant flow between the three books, but
that it was very vague outlining. She explains that “I plan what is going to
happen, but don’t know exactly how it will take place or where. That’s part of
the fun for me is sitting down and thinking, “Okay. These characters need to
have this conversation now. What would be the best place for it to happen?’”
On another personal
note like Amy Plum I have also tried just to loosely outline a story and that
failed as well and not just once but twice. It seems for some reason that I
have much better luck finishing short stories. It could be because maybe I
think about it too much since I find that if I revisit a story a few months
later then I can write a bit more of it before the same problem happens again. I
think I need to find my balance of just the right amount of outlining and
brainstorming and then I’ll be able to finish things without a problem.
What it comes down to I
think is that every writer will eventually get their story down onto paper but
the way they go about getting it there will be entirely up to them.
I could not agree with you more! There's just something so restraining about writing an outline and fitting a story into it. Whenever I do that, I always find myself turning my outline into a check list, and I don't feel like I'm writing my story properly until everything I planned is put in there. I can see how an outline might make sense for a series of books, but there really is nothing quite like sitting down in front of a computer screen and trying to sort out your story in your head.
ReplyDelete