Karen S. Wiesner: The Ins and Outs of Outlining, Part 3

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

The Ins and Outs of Outlining, Part 3

Based on FIRST DRAFT OUTLINE (formerly titled FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS)

This is the final of three posts dealing with outlining.

In the final segment of my outlining series, I offer tips for creating a useful outline that translates into cohesive story building and career momentum.

Tip 1) Creating Story Folders

To get started, always create story folders for every single germ of an idea you have and do this throughout your career. Each time you have something to add, jot down a note and insert it in the folder, thereby building up and developing the story over time and getting it ready to be outlined. In this way, you allow each story to “percolate” on the backburner of your mind over a long period of time, which is absolutely ideal since the more you have to work with, the easier every story will be to work out. Brainstorming for a long time—preferably years—is a proactive way of advancing your story writing and ensuring the future of your career success. Additionally, creating and utilizing story folders throughout your career also allows you to stay focused on current WIPs and not have your brain “divided” by working on more than one project at a time.

When it's time to outline a project, take out you story folder, which should contain a good number of the pieces you've created and will now be puzzled out, developed and adjusted, expanded or cropped until the story is complete, whole and solid. Essentially, you jump in and, in this process that requires endless, productive brainstorming, you work chronologically from the beginning of the book to the end, outlining every single scene.

Tip 2) Brainstorming Continuously

Something I don't think I can ever overemphasize is the vital importance of brainstorming in every stage of your writing to keep your productivity at a pinnacle. Brainstorming is what turns an average story into an extraordinary one. It’s the magical element every writer marvels about in the process of completing a book.

A popular novelist said that for her next book, she was going to hold it inside her until it was like a piece of fruit on a branch bowing almost to the ground it was so ripe. Isn’t that an incredible picture of how a story can grow in our minds until it absolutely has to be written? That’s exactly as it should be (though you can do the same for an idea that’s not ready—it’ll just be a lot harder). Ideally, don’t start your story until you have a lot to work with. The productive writer starts with a solid story that’s ready to drop into her hands like ripe fruit. When I’m working on a project, I try to brainstorming day and night, whatever I do, wherever I am, whenever I possibly can.

Something every author covets is the ability to sit down to a blank screen or page and begin to work immediately. The secret to doing that is brainstorming! When you brainstorm constantly and productively during both the outlining and writing processes, you’ll always be fully prepared to begin working without agonizing over the starting sentences or paragraph. Brainstorming keeps your writing so fresh, you don’t have to worry about getting stuck at any point. It's the secret to avoiding writer's block forever.

Tip 3) Outlining and Writing in Tandem

When I first started outlining, I would inevitably hit a road block working chronologically. Each time it happened, I'd skip around and work on scenes that I knew would come in at some later point in the book, and so the middle and end of the book began to gain structure. As I worked, all my scenes and ideas were expanding in my mind and on the page, taking on layers of richness, complexity and depth. {Note: Very early in my outlining, I used a process I call “outlining and writing in tandem” which was outlining as far as I could go scene by scene in the book. When I hit a roadblock I couldn't seem to get past jumping around in the outline, I would start writing the book at Chapter One, scene 1. Sometimes writing that scene showed me what should happen next in my outline. In that case, I returned to outlining the book as far as I could go from there again. If I hit another roadblock, I’d write the next scene in the book. I always returned to the outlining, if I could, as soon as I wrote a scene because the process of writing exploded and grew the idea in my mind, giving me ideas for how to progress the story from the point I was in outlining it.

My goal, of course, was to finish outlining the book long before I finished writing it. See First Draft Outline for more specifics on the “tandem” writing process. This is something I no longer need to do. I outline a book from start to finish each time. The longer we write, the more books we finish, the easier it should become. We grow more adept in our writing the longer we do it.

Keep working like this, going back and forth, always trying to return to chronological order scene drafting when you can, pushing the storyline forward toward completion, until your outline contains every single scene in the book. Once the outline is complete, take a short break to give yourself a little distance, then read the outline over, filling in any holes. Basically, you're revising the outline in the same way you would a first draft. When you're satisfied that everything is there as it should be, you'll see one irrefutable conclusion: This is unmistakably the first draft of your book because it is your book…condensed. An outline like this is so complete that it contains every single one of your plot threads, unfurled with the correct pacing and the necessary tension, culmination and resolution from beginning to end.

Tip 4) Setting the Stage for Strong Characterization, Plots, and Conflicts in the Outline

Your outline is the place to work out your story settings, plot conflicts, in-depth characterization before starting the actual book. This allows you to focus on scenes that work cohesively together and advance all of these. Additionally, tension, foreshadowing, dialogue, introspection, action, descriptions, etc. can best be done within the outline (without it having to be your best work--just give yourself directions for all of these within the scene you need them in your outline), building strength while adding texture and complexity.

If you know where your story is going before you ever write a word of the first draft (in other words, you've already plotted every single scene of the story from start to finish so you know what's supposed to happen in each one), your story has a firm foundation that supports the framework of your story. You've worked out the kinks in the story in the outline and ensured that the writing and revising will go smoothly and easily. Best of all, what you end up should be utterly solid, requiring only minor editing and polishing to make it publishable. You will almost never have to face a sagging middle, deflated tension, a poorly constructed plot thread or weak characterization again because all those serious problems had been fixed in the outline stage.

Tip 5) Revising Less

You may find this hard to believe, but I discovered yet another cool side effect of using this method. I can now write a full-length novel (based on my first-draft outline) in a month or less, usually, by committing myself to writing two scenes a day. (Obviously shorter works would take even less time than that.) If you write only one, though, you’re still progressing and probably at a faster rate than you would not using the method. Also, because the story is so solid in the outline, revision amounts to removing clutter to make the story understandable, to prevent tripping hazards caused by clumsy prose, and to infuse a story with vivid, interesting narration that says succinctly what it is you want it to say, concurrently bringing the whole story to vibrant life. After my critique partner has gone over the book, a final polish (reading the book off the computer—where I’ll catch more typos) completes the work and gives me confidence that it’s ready to go to my editor.

Most of my editorial revisions are minor common sense suggestions to refine word usage and smooth out the flow of sentences. I can’t remember the last time an editor pointed out a structural issue. I’ve been very fortunate to enjoy both excellent reviews and multiple awards, and a warm reception from readers. Additionally, I’m able to complete more books each year because I use the most effective method for completing each and every projects.

Tip 6) Goal-setting

Once you have that solid outline, you’ll know every single day what you’ll be writing, which has a two-fold perk: You can plan how long it'll take to write the book down to the day (if you have 40 scenes and write 2 a day, it'll take you 20 days to finish the book, right?) and you never have to sit down to a blank page, floundering because you have no idea how to fill it. You know where the story is going and exactly what needs to happen in each scene.

The more efficient you are in the process of writing each book, the more momentum you build in your career because you can offer more high-quality books in less time. The days of an author leisurely writing one book a year to offer to his or her fans are long past. Authors have to offer countless releases every year to compete, especially if they're writing as eires. So writers have to learn how to produce more high-quality books in less time to have anything like a success career these days. The methods contained in my 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection can help you do that without exhausting yourself and ensuring that every single book is the best you can possibly make it.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of First Draft Outline and Cohesive Story Building

Volumes 1 and 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: The Ins and Outs of Outlining. Part 2

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

The Ins and Outs of Outlining. Part 2

Based on FIRST DRAFT OUTLINE (formerly titled FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS)

This is the second of three posts dealing with outlining.

In Part 1 of this article, we talked in-depth about how a complete outline that you write before your first draft of any story will contain everything your book will, only in a much more condensed snapshot. A “first draft” outline is equivalent to the first draft of a manuscript because it has everything your manuscript will. Writing your book based on an outline this complete might almost make you feel like you’re cheating, because the writing process should be simplicity itself. The clearer a writer’s vision of the story before the actual writing, the more fleshed out, cohesive, and solid the story will be once it makes it to an actual first draft.

My book First Draft Outline (formerly titled First Draft in 30 Days) goes in-depth about outlining and goal setting. The follow-up title, Cohesive Story Building, focuses on writing in stages and story building with multiple layers that mean strength and cohesion for your book. If you write one draft and revise that, you only have two layers. That's why just jumping into the story without an outline doesn't produce the same results or complexity. With the kind of layering I talk about in Cohesive Story Building, a story is three-dimensional, strong, realistic and richly textured. When these two writing reference manuals are used together, your writing process can become a well-oiled machine focused on productivity, high-quality, and unending momentum. These references contain the secrets of how I became so prolific. Between these two books, I cover every single stage of writing a book in-depth and step-by-step, so each aspect is detailed from start to finish.

In the ideal writing situation, a book goes through eleven stages (though the last two are optional, which I’ll explain later). These are the layers that build texturally complex stories and characters and they include:

Stage 1: Brainstorming

Stage 2: Researching

Stage 3: Outlining

Stage 4: Setting aside the project

Stage 5: Writing the first draft

Stage 6: Setting aside

Stage 7: Revising

Stage 8: Setting aside (and, while sitting, critique partners are going over it)

Stage 9: (after I get it back from critique partners) Editing and polishing

Stage 10: Setting aside

Stage 11: Final read-through

You’ll notice that three of the stages are about “setting the story aside”. I believe a book is best if you give it time to breathe between the stages. Letting your projects sit for a couple of weeks—or even months—in-between stages will provide you with a completely fresh perspective. All writers get too close to their stories. Distance gives you objectivity and the ability to read your own work so you can progress further with it.

Another reason for setting projects aside between stages is that writers always reach a point where their motivation runs out, and they may simply want to get away from the story as fast as they can. Who wants to write a book you’ve just spent weeks or even months outlining? Who would want to revise a book you’ve spent weeks or months writing? With every single book, I get to rock bottom and I’m convinced that if I ever see the manuscript again, I’ll tear it to shreds. Setting it aside between the various stages the project goes through really gives me back my motivation for it. I’m always amazed at how much better I can face the project again when I haven’t seen it for a couple weeks or even months. I fall in love with it again. The next stage in the process becomes easier, too, and that helps my writing to be much better. When working in stages, each step is a layer that’s added to the book, a layer that makes it stronger, richer, and more cohesive--and realistically three-dimensional.

One final reason for working in stages is that I’m able to start brainstorming on upcoming projects sometimes years in advance. When it’s time to work on that project, I have a ton of ideas and the motivation to get them down and that carries me through the outlining. Because I’ve always got multiple books going at one time—each one in a different stage of the process—I’m constantly brainstorming on these projects in the back of my mind. That’s so crucial to the overall strength of your stories and for the momentum of your career. Working in stages is the absolute height of productivity. I can't imagine how to do it any other way and still continue to write solid novels and meet all my deadlines.

When I started out, I was a seat of the pants writer all the way and I wrote about 12 drafts of every single book to get a single one that was decent. So I had to figure out how to do this more productively, especially after I got published. I think my books teach the most effective ways of getting from A to Z in writing and also planning a successful career in writing.

I'm a strong believer in never doing more work than you need to. In the beginning, you might need to fill out endless worksheets and checklists because that's the best way to learn how to develop your story. But you should only ever do what you feel benefits you and your story. The point of all writing methods is to find out how you work best—take what you can, discard the rest. Creating an outline in whatever form that gives you the strongest guide for writing you novel is a crucial layer in developing every single story. If you want to see an example of how I write in stages throughout every given year, check out my Works in Progress page here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/works-in-progress.html

In the last part of this article, I'll provide tips for creating a useful outline that translates into cohesive story building and career momentum.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of First Draft Outline and Cohesive Story Building

Volumes 1 and 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: The Ins and Outs of Outlining, Part 1

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

The Ins and Outs of Outlining, Part 1

Based on FIRST DRAFT OUTLINE (formerly titled FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS)

This is the first of three posts dealing with outlining. 

Some authors swear by outlines. Others say it stifles creativity. Those who are against outlining have strong opinions about them: They're a wasted effort. They can do the same thing by just jumping right into a story without a blueprint of some kind. They'll get more done if they skip this step. The exact opposite is the case, as I'll explain in this article. My writing reference, First Draft Outline (formerly titled First Draft in 30 Days), details creating an outline step-by-step and this can (and should) be done for all works of fiction, any size, whether a full-length novel or flash fiction. I use an outline for every single fiction project I undertake. There's no way I could consistently create solid books the way I do without one.

My feeling about outlines is simple: Why make the process of writing a book as hard as you possibly can by churning out hundreds of pages to get what probably won't be a workable first draft of a story and will require endless revisions, when, with the right preparation, you can create an outline so complete, it actually qualifies as the first draft of your book and includes every single scene of your book--meaning you can sit down and start writing immediately every day? With an outline like the one I talk about in my writing reference titles, you can see your entire novel from start to finish in one condensed place--including all the workable parts and all the unworkable ones.

Creating an outline like this puts the hard work of writing where it belongs—at the beginning a project. If you work out the kinks in the story in the outline, you ensure that the writing and revising are the easy parts. Revise your outline until you've got a completely solid story. In general, a regular full-length novel is around 400 manuscript pages. A “first draft” outline usually ends up being approximately a quarter of the size of the completed book. Revising 100 pages of an outline will certainly be much easier than revising 400 manuscript pages! Which would you rather revise? Because it’s an outline, it doesn’t even need to be your best writing. Most authors don’t and won’t spend endless time revising the words and sentence structure or whatever, in an outline, since they’re the only ones who’ll see it. That makes for a lot less obsession over every word and sentence, and puts the revision where it should be in the logical order of writing a book—at the end.

With your first-draft outline, you’ve made the revision process much easier for yourself. You can revise the outline as much as you need to in order to fine-tune your story, and you’ve virtually eliminated the need to overhaul (or scrap) the manuscript itself later.

Many authors fear that using an outline will kill their enthusiasm for writing the book or that their creativity will be hampered or caged with one. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve never felt stifled by an outline. The outline frees me to explore every aspect of a book—without risk. Use your outline to explore any angle you want. If it’s logical, keep it. If it’s not, delete it. You’ll only lose a little time, and your story will be stronger for it. If you realize halfway through or even all the way through outlining a book that some of your ideas aren’t working, it’s just a matter of deleting the stuff that doesn't work and starting again in a new direction. This is a change that probably won’t take longer than a few days to make in the much shorter outline (instead of the months or even years it might take to identify and correct a full draft of a book created without an outline). Exploring new angles while outlining allows you to avoid spending countless hours laboring and only then finding out these ideas don’t work.

Your completed outline will contain everything your book will, only in a much more condensed snapshot. A “first draft” outline is equivalent to the first draft of a manuscript because it has everything your manuscript will. It may or may not be something you can show an editor yet, but it truly will be all there. The hard work is over. Writing your book based on an outline this complete might almost make you feel guilty, like you’re cheating, because the writing process should be simplicity itself. The clearer a writer’s vision of the story before the actual writing, the more fleshed out, cohesive, and solid the story will be once it makes it to an actual first draft.

For those who use the argument that outlining kills your enthusiasm for writing a story, I want to challenge you to try this method anyway—a couple of times if you’re willing—then ask yourself this question: How do you feel after you finish a first draft that you know will require a blood-shedding amount of time and effort to revise? You feel exhausted and sick of the story, don’t you?

Let’s say you have to revise that same book a second time because the first time wasn’t good enough. Now how do you feel? Like you never want to set eyes on the story again, right? Imagine if you have to do this more than twice—say, three or four times to get a publishable manuscript. Imagine yourself rewriting and polishing this story all throughout this process, in a way that truly feels like you might never be finished.

You really do have to experience this to understand it but, when I write a book based on a “first draft” outline, pure magic happens because I watch the skeleton—the framework of the book contained in my outline—putting on flesh, becoming a walking, talking, breathing story. If anything, it’s more exciting this way—and a whole lot easier! I almost never have to rewrite the story. Revision after a first draft amounts to fine-tuning something that’s already working well. Try it a few times yourself.

My book First Draft Outline goes in-depth about outlining and goal setting. The follow-up title, Cohesive Story Building, focuses on writing in stages and story building with multiple layers that mean strength and cohesion for your book. If you write one draft and revise that, you only have two layers. That's why just jumping into the story without an outline doesn't produce the same results or complexity.

In Part 2 of this three-part article, we'll talk about how your outline jumpstarts the process of cohesive story building.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of First Draft Outline and Cohesive Story Building

Volumes 1 and 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: The Four Myths Your Muse Desperately Wants You to Believe, Part 4

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

The Four Myths Your Muse Desperately Wants You to Believe, Part 4

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on FIRST DRAFT OUTLINE (formerly titled FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS)

This is the final of four posts dealing with how writers can get their muses to work with rather than against them.

In Part 3 of this article, we talked about the third myth your muse desperately wants you to believe. Let's continue.

Myth Four:  Outlines and setting goals stifle a writer’s creativity.

I went online and conducted an informal poll with authors about the use of outlines in order to see an interesting slice of the writing life. I asked participating writers if they use outlines to write novels. The majority of the 76 authors who responded to this poll were published. Thirty-eight percent of them said they always use an outline, 38 percent said they sometimes use an outline, 28 percent said they never use an outline, and one percent said they’d like to use one.

Then I asked authors how many drafts they write to get to a final, polished, salable novel. Forty-seven writers voted, 98 percent of whom were published. Forty-seven percent of the authors said they had to write four or more drafts of each book, 15 percent had to write three drafts, 30 percent had to do two drafts, and only eight percent need a single draft.

These poll results, while obviously not conclusive, nevertheless astounded me. Thirty-eight percent of published and unpublished authors said they do use outlines in some form; 28 percent said they never use outlines. In contrast, 47 percent of mostly published authors said they have to write four or more drafts to get a final, polished, salable novel! Only eight percent of them do one draft to get the same results. Based on the many interviews I’ve read in writing magazines with published authors, I believe my informal polls do show a fairly accurate picture of writers these days. It seems that even the household-name authors follow a spiritual journey of manuscript writing rather than an organized system or solid road-map. How can this be?

I think we can all agree that the publishing market these days is in a major state of chaos. Even more thwarting is if those authors can only write one book a year. In this current state of publishers folding, changing hands, and concentrating mainly on their prolific, best-selling authors, it’s absolutely essential that writers learn how to finish quality novels and to do it fast enough to keep the momentum of their careers rolling steadily. Published authors who want to compete in a totally chaotic market need to learn to write fewer drafts because they can sell a proposal “on spec,” which generally translates into selling more in less time.

I’m not suggesting in any way that authors should crank out inferior novels simply to sell. Too many writers already do that. I’m suggesting that the best time to learn to create a fantastic novel fast, to learn to “write tight”, is during a writer’s unpublished years. As soon as you finish your first novel and submit it to a publisher or publishers, start a second because you never know how much time you have once "the call" comes. For the published writer, the ideal way to keep rolling along is to write at least one or two projects ahead of your contracts. (If you’re unpublished and still in the formative stage of being a writer, don’t let this scare or intimidate you—let the creative process take you where it will.)

I would venture a guess that the authors who are selling like hotcakes and making the New York Times Bestseller List are using outlines in some form, they’re writing more than one novel a year, and they have specific goals that encompass years in advance.

There is no wrong way to write a book. I’ll be the first to state that emphatically. I’ve talked to hundreds of authors, published and unpublished, and all of them have their own, unique ways of working. There’s no wrong way, but there are very ineffective ways of writing, especially after you’re published.

John Berendt says, “Don’t make an outline; make a laundry list. The very idea of an outline suggests rigidity; items on a laundry list can be shifted around. Don’t lock the structure in too early. A piece of writing should evolve as it’s being written.” Never mind the fact that I don’t have a clue what a “laundry list” is (something like a grocery list?). The point is, I hear the same thing from almost every writer I talk to, whether or not they’re published:  Writers like outlines about as much as a homeowner likes termites. The word can actually make some writers cringe and do a full-body shudder. The idea of an outline doesn’t inspire them, sounds like too much work, seems too confining, absolutely unappealing, necessitates the ability to see far ahead in a novel, I can’t possibly work that way! 

Now I can hear the questions arising in a tumult:  Is it possible for an outline to be flexible? To take into account my individuality as a writer? Can I continue to be creative using an outline? Can I use an outline for writing any fiction genre? Can using an outline reduce the number of re-writes I have to do? Can it really take me less time to complete a project from start to finish using an outline?

Many authors are seeking something to give them direction and embrace their individual way of working without robbing them of the joy of creating. They want something that will streamline the process in order to make them more productive, so they’re not digging up endless, empty holes. They want something that will help them work more productively before they ever start writing a word of an actual book, and do it in a way that won’t rob them of the joy of their craft. They aren’t aware that a full outline can achieve all this because someone has, however sincerely, led them to believe a writer’s job has to be an ethereal, intuitive journey, which means they have to stay firmly under their muses’ controlling thumb.

An outline can be flexible, can be so complete it may actually qualify as the first draft of a novel. An outline can also make it possible that writers, in fact, do less work, not only reducing the number of drafts they have to do per project, but possibly even reducing it to a single draft. More books finished a year and quite likely more sales to publishers. The clearer a writer’s vision of the story before the actual writing, the more fleshed out the story will be once it makes it to paper.

We’ve already established that countless writers believe outlines are rigid, unmalleable creatures which hinder them in the quest of true and righteous creativity. But there is another way of looking at them. Instead of viewing an outline as an inflexible, unchangeable hindrance, imagine it as a snapshot of a novel. A snapshot that captures everything the novel will contain on a much smaller scale. A snapshot that can be “airbrushed” and rearranged until it’s smooth, strong, and breathtakingly exciting. Now, in the same vein, imagine revising 50 to a 100 pages instead of 250 to 400 pages. That, you must admit, my fellow writer, is an ideal place to begin.

Remember, anytime you as a writer gain control over an aspect of your writing, your muse is reined in, and—if you’re determined enough to succeed—eventually your muse will have to accept the task of being your assistant rather than being your master. Someday your muse will even realize it enjoys its role as an assistant and will rise to meet every challenge just as eagerly as you do because you’re a team who respects each other and the two of you have mutual goals. Just as children thrive under gentle yet firm direction from their parents or caretakers, so, too, will your muse.

Are you willing to take the risk of battling with your muse, author? Do you believe the benefits of taking that risk could be well worth it in the end if it meant becoming a productive writer with an assistant (your muse) to die for? Would you be willing to take the risk if it meant you could start a project and complete it, easily and quickly, without wasting time in possibly fruitless searches, meandering aimlessly as you wait for divine inspiration?

If you’re willing to take a leap of faith and commit yourself for the long haul, using an outline that tracks your novel from start to finish can be the very thing you need.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of First Draft Outline

Volume 1 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html 

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: The Four Myths Your Muse Desperately Wants You to Believe, Part 3

Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

The Four Myths Your Muse Desperately Wants You to Believe, Part 3

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on FIRST DRAFT OUTLINE (formerly titled FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS)

This is the third of four posts dealing with how writers can get their muses to work with rather than against them.

In Part 2 of this article, we talked about the second myth your muse desperately wants you to believe. Let's continue.

Myth Three:  You have to dig for plots blindly.

The writing process has been compared to many things since the beginning of time:  A series of epiphanies exploding all around you. A spiritual journey. Currently, the most popular analogy is that stories are discovered by digging around in the creative dirt, and then you as the writer are supposed to unearth whatever it is you think you’ve found. How many authors believe this fossil-in-the-ground philosophy? Countless. Let me tell you, my friend, that’s exactly what your Master Muse wants you—its loyal, cowering slave—to believe.

The single biggest flaw in this digging-blindly-for-plot theory of writing (and similar analogies) is that it doesn’t take into account that the writer may start digging for his story a hundred miles in the wrong direction! If you haven’t done all the necessary preparation to begin work, you have no idea whether or not there really is a story beneath the soil you’re unearthing. You may dig endlessly and never find it…or you may find it quite a ways down the pike from where you started, and nothing that has come before has any or much consequence and worth.

How many authors believe outlines are a last resort? Sadly, too many to count. So many writers attribute far too much of a project to some magical, cataclysmic explosion which somehow takes you from the first page of a novel to the last, with little or no premeditation involved. I don’t discount the magical element—because it is there in some degree, but I simply can’t buy into the spiritual intuition way of writing. How can a brand-new, never-written-much-or-anything-before writer have this kind of intuition?

With an outline and clear-cut goals, you know there is a story down there, you know where to start digging, and you know exactly how far to go down. Everything you plot from start to finish is good and worthwhile.

Now I’m sure archaeology has changed radically in the last five or ten years, becoming what archaeologists believe is more of a science than treasure hunting. Do you think archaeologists feel less like archaeologists because of these changes? I doubt it. In fact, they probably feel more like worthwhile scientists because they spend more time uncovering what they’re after than in seemingly endless searches for it. Likewise, writers who use an outline spend more time writing a story than searching for one.

In the next part of this article, we'll talk about another myth your muse desperately wants you to believe.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of First Draft Outline

Volume 1 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: The Four Myths Your Muse Desperately Wants You to Believe, Part 2

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

The Four Myths Your Muse Desperately Wants You to Believe, Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on FIRST DRAFT OUTLINE (formerly titled FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS)

This is the second of four posts dealing with how writers can get their muses to work with rather than against them.

In Part 1 of this article, we talked about the first myth your muse desperately wants you to believe. Let's continue.

Myth Two:  If you try to master your muse, it’ll leave you forever.

Like most writers who write based on the whims of their muse, I used to believe if I tried to master my muse, he’d punish me by leaving me forever. But I had to make a choice:  I either mastered him and made him my assistant, risking the chance that he’d leave me forever, or I let my muse win, and I went into what had now become a career allowing him to direct me, if and when he deigned to. I took a gamble, and I decided it was worth losing my muse if I could be the one to make the decisions in my career. My gamble paid off—in spades.

So how did I become a master of my muse? With self-discipline. I made goals, and I stuck to them religiously. I also started using outlines for every project.

I had no opinions about outlines before I tried one, outside of simply believing I couldn’t learn to use one. I forced myself to try using an outline—my own version of an outline—for a novel I’d already written numerous drafts of. First I sketched out a couple chapters of the book, then I started writing the book once more. I completed the outline about midway through writing the first draft of the book. Not long after that, when I used an outline for a brand new project, I found myself brainstorming, productively and constantly. I was able to outline six to eight scenes of the book without writing a word of the actual novel.

With the outline complete well ahead of the novel, I was able to revise the outline instead of the novel. A wondrous thing happened in this process:  I could now see the entire novel from start to finish, in one condensed place—including all the workable parts and all the unworkable. All I had to do was fix the unworkable elements in the outline in order to strengthen the book.

Now when I write a novel, I always start with a complete outline, which I can revise as many times as I need to. Writing a book has almost become a simple process, requiring only one draft and a final edit and polish (for most projects). I save time, effort, and many, many intense rewrites. I can also write more “final draft” novels a year, rather than a half dozen that need another overhaul.

There’s a big difference between authors who are slaves to their muses and those who have mastered it. Authors who have mastered their muses have left behind many of their monomaniacal ways and have re-directed their energies in more productive ways of accomplishment on each project. Some projects capture them more than others, but quality work continues regardless. They don’t wait for a fickle muse to bless them with divine inspiration.

They set their course with determination and purpose, and they don’t detour from it. These writers not only plans ahead project by project, but frequently plans their careers by the year (or more!) with challenging yet attainable goals. They seem very satisfied, almost laid-back with themselves and their work because they tend to finish what they start, a couple pages or a chapter a day. Generally, they write in a linear fashion. Writer’s block and burn-out are rare since the muse has become an assistant rather than the supreme ruler. These authors are nostalgic when they remember those day-and-night writing sessions, but a part of them is also relieved that they no longer have to rely on the whim of something so unstable to accomplish anything. Authors with muse assistants love their work just as much—possibly more—than a muse-driven author. The author and muse have formed a cohesive team, each respecting the other and working harmoniously with the common goal of wanting to produce the best book they possibly can together.

Your first instinct after reading the vast differences between muse-driven and muse-assisted is probably that there is one wrong and one right way to creating a book. In fact, it’s not about that at all. The first year or more of committing yourself to becoming a writer will be one of the most definitive in the life of any author. This is where you learn the very foundations of being a writer, where you learn what you can do. Your goal during these formative years isn’t to be a productive writer or even a published one. Writing, re-writing and re-writing some more is how you grow.

All writers deserve to give themselves the time they need to refine and learn to love their craft in whatever way works for them—even if it’s crazy, to believe in themselves enough to take the next, crucial step.

There is a time to move beyond that wonderful stage, if you believe you’re talented and ambitious enough to succeed as an author. I think you’ll know when the time has arrived for you. You’ll have at least one near-perfect, complete manuscript that you believe in with all your heart. Quite possibly, you’ll have many more than that. You’ll also feel a strong urge for direction and discipline as you approach each project. That is the time to rein in your muse, to train it to assist you instead of control you, and to get down to the business of becoming a productive writer who sells that near-perfect manuscript of your heart.

It’s a very different world for me than when I first started writing. I no longer believe in superstitions. They never got me anywhere except face-down on the ground, cowering. There are so many writers who believe that the muse is a magical being who either blesses us or curses us. Imagine believing your muse is your assistant in the process of writing. Imagine a world where it’s no longer up to the power-hungry bard you possess whether you write, when you write, how much you write, or how you feel about any of it.

Now is the time to take control of your writing, if you’re willing to gamble (and possibly wrestle until one of you concedes defeat) with your muse.

In the next part of this article, we'll talk about another myth your muse desperately wants you to believe.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of First Draft Outline

Volume 1 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor