As I've said before, I'm past the 15 or 20 pieces of this story that were "clear" to me. I have another 5 or so that have opened up as a result of those 15 or 20, but from there on out, its all a nebulous grey fog.
And that's got me wondering: Do I try to outline the rest of the story? Put the pieces I have on a time line and then fill in blanks and complete the story before writing? Do I sit and actually work out the rest of the writing I have to do, or do I just resolve to sit down and write and see what happens from there?
I have some ideas for pieces I have to write. As I said, I've got 5 or so. And I've got a general idea of where its all going and what will happen. But am I better off writing this down now or waiting? Writing it down now would seem to be, well, writing, and I think I might have trouble not just breaking into narrative storytelling, which would defeat the whole purpose. An outline isn't an outline if you just write one really long piece everytime you try your hand at it. Also, I think an outline might constrain: Not that I couldn't stray, I mean, I do have creative license, but that outline may color my thinking or how I want to go. It might seem more forced.
Anyway, that's what I'm mulling now.
UPDATE: I'm holding off a pretty much completed post about "Pretty" so as to not bump this post. I'll post that tomorrow,
UPDATE II: Just realized you can schedule a post for a set time in the future, so my new post will go up Friday morning. Ordinarily I would post it myself, but I'm probably taking off Friday, so I might not be available. That blogger - its on top of stuff like this.
I can only offer you my own thoughts here:
ReplyDeleteI'm the "fly by the seat of my pants" type girl, since outlines tend to--for me, at least--make me feel like I'm reporting what happens instead of Joe talking to Jane and OMG DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?
On the other hand, knowing where things are going is a good idea, especially if "stuck". I tend to take long walks and have the characters play out a scene in my head that's a part of the book I'm not writing near at the moment and then I realize I should get to point Q from A and a bunch of letters need to happen inbetween. But this works best when working linear, which I know you're not.
As an exercise, I'm currently writing a piece backwards/randomly. It starts with the end (she dies) and the rest gets us there. I've no idea how this will work, or if thinking about this will help you.
If you do decide to go the outline route, I'd recommend NOT doing it on the computer, if only because we tend to get more verbose there. Grab a piece of paper and draw lines and connect them in whatever way you think fits best. This will keep you brief in your description of events while also giving you the satisfaction of scribbling out lines.
~ BL
PS. I own lots of scrap paper if you need it.