Overcoming the Blank Page: The Value of Outlining
Hey Story Crafters,
Do you write an outline before you start writing, or do you just start writing and discover where the story is going along the way? (In other words, are you a planner or a pantser?)
Each writer has their own process, but these are the two main camps most writers seem to fall into. Personally, I like to outline before I start writing. I’ve found the weird thing about creativity is that, for me, it works best within certain constraints instead of total freedom. By constraints I mean parameters like working under timed writing sessions, focusing only on one scene or chapter for a writing session, or writing a story based on an outline—I don’t mean constraints as in limiting the type of subject matter, the types of characters, or other factors that make a story interesting to write, and to read.
If I don’t have a skeleton of a plan—an outline—to follow when I start my writing journey, what I’m starting out with is a blank page. That blank page is often what discourages us writers from getting started on the actual writing that needs to be done. The blank page is what drives us to find reasons not to write, through procrastination, distraction, or any other reason we can think up.
So a good first step to making sure you’ll start writing your story, is to have some idea of what the story is, where it’s going, and how it ends. In other words, an outline.
The kind of outline I’m talking about isn’t the rigid, Roman numeral list structure-type you may’ve learned in school. (I found it tedious to use.) I do number my scenes in my outlines, but that’s so I can remember the order I want or need the scenes to happen to move the story forward. You can use bullet points or other markers, or nothing at all, if you choose.
Outlining your manuscript before you start writing allows you to:
1) Figure out what scenes need to happen, and their order.
As long as you have a basic narrative structure in mind, you know the types of scenes you need to include in order for the story to happen, and to make sense.
For example, the three-act structure has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You know there has to be an inciting incident—the problem or challenge your main character faces that forces them out of their normal life—in the first act, and a story climax that happens in act three. So you know you need scenes that show your main character’s life:
Before the inciting incident.
During the inciting incident that completely changes your MC’s life and kicks off the story.
During the sequence of events that demonstrates character growth through the various challenges your MC encounters, and the other characters your MC meets, as your MC tries to achieve the goal (or resolve the problem) presented in the inciting incident.
The climax—when your MC faces the main problem or obstacle head on. (This usually involves a final confrontation with the antagonist.)
A scene or two for the resolution.
2) Write in chronological order (for the most part).
While figuring out which scenes need to happen and mapping out their order, you can start fleshing out those scenes. This “fleshing out” can be as minimalistic or detailed as you like. I often write a sentence or two describing what I know needs to happen in a scene as a header, and then list a few bullet points detailing what the characters in that scene are doing so the goal of that scene can be met.
You may already have an idea of how you want a certain scene, like the inciting incident, to play out. You shouldn’t hold yourself back from writing a scene you have a clear vision of, with as much detail as you like, even if the scenes before and/or after it aren’t as fleshed out. Writing out the scenes you have clarity on can help you outline the scenes that come later in your story, and even help you flesh out earlier scenes as well.
3) Find opportunities for idea generation.
This relates back to Point 2: as you outline all the scenes you know need to happen in your story, you may discover details that need to happen earlier or later in the story. You may even discover you need to add scenes in order to make the narrative flow smoother. But you won’t know what you don’t know about your story, or what scenes or other details you don’t have, until you write out what you do know.
Outlining your story before you start writing can help you find clarity on what you know about your story in terms of scenes. It can help you discover which scenes you need to include to write your story, and their order.
Additionally, outlining your story can help you overcome the dread of the blank page. If you already have clarity on what your story is and the scenes you need to make it happen, you’ll be confident that you have a story that needs to be told, and that you have the ability to write it.
Even if you’re a pantser, you might consider trying an outline if you find yourself stalled in your writing for long periods of time. It never hurts to try out a new technique, just to see if it helps make your writing process smoother and more efficient. And if it doesn’t work out for you, then you’ll know that for future projects.
Try outlining one of your writing projects, and leave a comment to let me know how it goes!
Happy writing!
Leah
P.S. A relationship map is helpful to have at the outlining stage of your writing journey. An outline will help you nail down specific events and scenes that need to happen, in order to showcase your main character’s personality, motivations, and relationships with the other major characters (including the antagonist) of your story—details that you’ll already have mapped out on your relationship map.
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