Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Regular Writing Wednesday, in which I muse about outlining and pantsing

In the world of writing, there are two diametrically opposed ways of producing a final draft. On one side, there is outlining, producing a blueprint for the thing to be written before a single letter of a single word of a single sentence is committed to the draft. On the other side, there is barreling ahead and committing words to the project without any care for a plan; the so-called writing by-the-seat-of-your pants method. Of course, in the real world, most people write in a hybrid style while leaning more toward one end of the spectrum than the other.

For me, I'm closer to a pantser than a outliner. The problem I usually face with that method, however, is that I often run out of pants to sit on before I am done with the product, to stretch a metaphor to the point of tearing it, and to produce a bad pun. In other words, to use another metaphor, I often hit a brick wall.

So this past week I've been trying to move more toward the center and do a little more of that outlining the other side is so fond of. I fear that outlining will have the unfortunate side effect that I'll get bored with the material too fast if I have too detailed of a plan. But in this case, I've already used the pantsing treatment on it, so I hope that means the only direction to go is toward completion. I think that outlining method I've chosen will also contribute to me not getting bored. Basically, it starts with a one sentence summary of the novel, and then expands it from there, so the the creative work is directed more inwardly toward finer and finer detail, rather than linearly from point A to point B, the so-called snowflake method of outlining.

Now I think I need to figure out a meaningful schedule, and stick to it. Because these regularly scheduled blog posts sure make me write on the blog. Finding what is "meaningful" is going to be the trick, however.

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