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