How do you organize your life? Your day?
That is how you will organize your novel.
When I say this in workshops, many people are shocked. But the reality is, your creative side comes out of your habitual side. So to think you can do something radically different in your art than in your day-to-day life is naïve. Unless, of course, you are aware, and work hard to change.
Every writer’s ‘process’ is somewhat different. There is no single way to outline (if you even outline at all) or plot a book. But there are templates to the craft. An artist takes a template and channels their own vision to create their unique masterpiece.
Put any one writer in a room and she will start arguing about outlining. With herself. Seriously. Want to get writers going, start the “Do you have to outline?” topic.
No. You don’t. However. I submit every writer outlines they just call it different things and go about it in different ways. Bryce Courtney (#1 all-timing selling author in Australia) and I spent a long night at the bar in Maui arguing discussing outlining among many other things. He didn’t believe in it. He said he wanted to know who his three main characters were, where the story was set, and then went at it. I submit that’s kind-of, sort-of a bare-bones outline. But here’s the kicker. Bryce also did a hell of a lot of rewriting.
My friend, Terry Brooks, a #1 NY Times bestselling author, absolutely believes in outlining. And does not like rewriting.
So for Bryce, I submit he just does a very detailed outline called the first draft.
Next month at the Write It Forward Workshops, I will be teaching a course on outlining and plot. I’ll actually cover plot first (and blog about it later this week), because how the hell can you outline something if you don’t know what it is about?
More importantly, near the end of the month I’m going to touch on something that is the core of writing: the author’s process. That’s much bigger than just plot or outline. I recently had another friend, Elizabeth George, who I also met at the Maui Writers Conference, and lives down the road here on Whidbey, come into my Whidbey Island Writers Workshop and spend some time describing her process for writing a novel to the attendees. It was quite fascinating and really got me to thinking. For example, after she has her Kernel Idea for the book, she finds setting. Then after researching setting, she ‘peoples’ the setting in a very structured and step driven process.
I’m looking forward to putting that thinking in writing next month during the workshop and also getting feedback on process from other writers.
Write It Forward!
Bob, I looked for an email to do this privately but couldn’t find one. I just wanted to thank you – I took your two day course down in San Diego in September of 2009. When you asked me to put my book into a one-line sentence, I couldn’t do it and got terribly embarrassed talking about my part-demons with their soul missing, and the bad vampires running around.
But when we got into the bite of the story, you threw out this phrase – Soul Chalice – and for me, heck for the entire room that day, everything clicked. I rewrote Demon Soul around the Soul Chalice concept you’d given me, and started a second book. Both of them have been picked up by Crescent Moon Press this past October, my first sale! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your insight and your patience with me. You totally rock!
Christine–Congrats on your sale(s). That’s totally awesome! I know if it hadn’t been for Bob I would never had gotten published, much less be in the position I am in today. I look forward to reading books.
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Christine– great news and congratulations. It’s always hear to the craft does work when someone does it right.
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With Kristen Lamb’s help, I’m currently re-writing my first novel (again) based on your Warrior Writer methods. I’m finding that plotting and outlining are adding incredible dimensions to my story, as well as to my ability to write it. Thank you for this excellent information. All the best.
I make excuses to people because I’m too linear to have a conversation and eat lunch at the same time. Gotta be one or the other and that’s how I write. Make a list (what you’re calling outline,) then proceed through the list backtracking as need be. What’s the diagram thingy in the top corner of this post? I tried to enlarge and look at it but it was too blurry? Is is an outline?
Joy
The diagram thing was my doing. It’s an outline using a program called Scrivener. We always try to put a picture or video in the posts that are meaningful to the topic. We linked to a running outline Bob uses as he writes and the diagram we pulled from my current WIP because it was readily available. Everyone outlines, just differently. I tend to over outline in the early stages, but if I don’t, I get sidetracked and then I’m off and running in the wrong direction….
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I’m a non-outliner and disagree that non-outliners have something that is an outline but they’re not calling it one. That seems to be more about outliners trying to figure us out and make us fit into their world than understanding how we work. I actually don’t know where the story is going to go until I get there, and some parts come in way out of order. I may write a scene and revisit it three or four times well after I long written past it because I don’t get all the pieces all at once. It’s like I need the context of the other scenes written to get things to flow together. Heck, I don’t even have names for the characters when I start! The closet thing I can come up with to describe my process is to throw paint at the wall and see what sticks.