Outlines

I am on another round of edits for my agent. Here is my tip to all of you: outline your novel!

I can honestly say if I had begun writing with an outline, this book wouldn’t have gone through so much rewriting.  And the funny (but not-so funny) thing is, outlines aren’t that difficult to do. I just happen to like the surprise element of not having an outline. I like not knowing what’s coming next. This is great, if you’re embarking on a cross-country trip across the U.S. Not so great when you’ve written a 300-page novel and now see where there are major plot holes and where the character arc is lacking.

Outlines also help you to see where you can have reversals and sub-plots work best. And whether or not you need those extra three people who don’t do much for your story. And if the ending works. That’s a really big advantage to an outline!

One of the women in my on-line critique group writes her outline, then has us critique it. What a great way to find out ahead of time if something seems workable.  You know, before you finish 57,000 words only realize it’s not coming together as well as you imagined.

Go ahead, decide whether or not to outline. It’s a personal choice. But I’m voting for outlining. It might save me a lot of trouble on the draft of the next novel I’m working on.

This entry was posted on 6. September 2010 at 21:29 and is filed under Writing Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.