The joy of outlining...

[khiemtran]

... is going back to year old notes after writing out a servicable but pedestrian scene, and finding a much cleverer solution already spelt out for me.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

This is why I recently went through the heap of scrappy notes I had collected for the W not yet IP. Some ideas had been superceded. There were also some good things I'd forgotten.

What I really hate is when you look through your notes and find two really neat ideas for a scene. Both of which are mutually exclusive. *g*

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Outlining rocks.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Up to a point.

If I outline in too much detail I have two problems:

a) My subconscious brain is much better at plotting than my conscious, but it works slowly and therefore only feeds me plot in dollops.

b) I totally lose the urge to write the novel properly if the outline is a complete but condensed form of the story.

As a compromise, I have developed a rolling planning system, so chapters are planned, but just shortly before they're written.

It seems to work. *g*

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

My outlines are usual on the level of crib notes or speech prompts. They're supposed to be "all the detail I need to remember the idea", but, in practice, they all tend to leave plenty of room for interpretation. (I've had a few good ones that read as "Yes! This is the answer! ")

OTOH, the downside of outlining is that I'm starting to get a bit suspicious as to how Past Me always seems to be much smarter than Present Me. I hope it's not something in the water...

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

I find this all very interesting. If you glance at my LJ, you'll see a screenshot of my WIP outline - I plan at a very low level. I suspect it's to do with which parts of writing come instinctively, which are learned and internalised, and which done intellectually. I'm not a natural story teller.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Very interesting, thanks. Just, for comparison, here's one of mine:

RIVER VILLAGE SCENE

protag breaks out of forest, sees village by river.
heads towards it, dizzy stumbles
people (in fields?) start shouting and pointing
protag calls out, but villagers call him a demon, start stoning him
protag calls in vain, then runs, with more villagers after him
driven into river, never seen a river before, falls in, get swept along
ride of terror, thoughts?
brushing of dragon tail?

As you can see, the higher layers, the story question and so forth, are missing because it's assumed[1] that I'd be able to remember them. The individual points are also very brief and far from obbligato - the actual version I wrote featured a number of variations from the outline and involved one or two failed attempts before I'd found just the tone I wanted. Looking at this outline after a period of approximately a year, it would probably also be worthless if I didn't have the voice, the character and the tone already in my head.

[1] Optimistically

Ta

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

(It's nice to be able to discuss outlining without being divebombed by exponents of "creativity" etc.)
That's very useful. The similarity is validating. I suspect an important aspect of outlining is not to try to turn it into some sort of documentation from which anybody could reconstruct your story, hence the idea of writing down only what YOU need.

The difference between our scene outlines, I think, is that mine consciously focus on reversals:

Protag in despair, but breaks out of forest and sees river village.
Heads towards it, but dizzy and stumbles
People see him, but instead of aiding him, shout and point.
Protag calls out, but villagers call him a demon and stone him.
Protag calls in vain, then runs, but villagers give chase
Escapes into river, but never seen a river before so falls in!
Survives but brushes dragon tail...

One of the reasons I write down the story question is so I can tinker with it. Sometimes, the scene exists to deliver a particular move in the greater game. Thus there are a dozen different ways at arriving at the same place. The question gives the scene focus.