On the Writing Process: To Outline or Not to Outline

    Although I can’t claim any best sellers or writing awards for my novels so far, I have been writing for many years. Thus far, I’ve completed seven novels five of which I have self-published in the past year. 

    I have tried the outline method with character sketches a couple times and I felt like my creative process had been stifled. Both the characters and the plot felt contrived. My characters neither wanted to act as I had drawn them in the descriptions and they didn’t want to follow the directions in my plot outline.  A third of the way through that novel, I put it on the shelf with its character sketches and plot outline and went on to write a different story.

    I was feeling a little guilty about not using outlines after reading so many articles that emphasize the outline and character sketch method to write a good novel.  Then I found some articles that emphasized NOT making an outline first because it can stifle the creative process.  It certainly seems to stifle mine. That could be because I am a right brain dominant thinker.

    As I wrote in an earlier posting, my character sketches are actual sketched picture portraits of them as I imagine them.

    When I write fiction, I see the characters and the scenes in my mind’s eye as a movie. I hear their voices in my head. I’ve discovered that trying to force all that into a plot outline and character sketches is futile. It’s easier to just sit down and pound out the scenes at the keyboard or make notes so I will remember if they come to me at a time when I can’t just write them down.

    When I first created the Aledan universe and Hankura and Chelle, I had an idea where it was going.  There have been changes as each book of the series has unfolded, but I still have sight of the endgame. As I was writing Psi Factor last year, I thought it might be the final book of the series until I realized there is still a lot of story unresolved.

    The old notes for the fifth installment I found recently are obsolete, but they reminded me of the destiny foretold for the Aledan’s Children. While I’m not sure that Hankura and Chelle’s story is over yet, they are mainly peripheral characters in The Aledan’s Children.  I simply could not force them into the plot I originally contrived for them.  Every time I tried to visualize them in that context, they seemed to rebel. They seemed to be telling me that the story was not about them anymore. It’s about their children and their legacy.

     I know all the key scenes and how it ends.  So I am writing the key scenes and the ending first, then I will go back and visualize how it ties together. Some scenes my ultimately be revised or discarded as in movie making, but the story will be told and it will be done without an outline. 

Copyright 2016 by Christine Myers

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