One of the reasons I’ve not spent a lot of time outlining in the past is that it just doesn’t seem to work for me. Too much outlining does one of two things: it either makes me feel like I’m totally boxed in with what I outlined, or the outline is so detailed that it sucks the life out of my interest in writing the story in the end.
And I think that’s what’s happened as I’ve spent nine weeks outlining my story in my Two Year Novel class. I have no desire whatsoever to write the story now. The outline sucked all the fun out of it.
I have always felt I wrote better as a “seat of the pants” writer. I start with a character(s) and a vague idea of an ending or how I want it to go, and start writing. I let the characters develop themselves as they go along, let them tell the story through my fingers. This has worked very well for my last three published novels, and also for the one I am currently editing. And I know it will work for the Nano novel I’m writing this year.
What’s frustrating is that I know this is a good story, and it deserves to be written. I could have skipped this part of the class and just picked up later when the outlining was over, but I wanted to give it a fair chance, try it and then make a decision about outlining.
At least now I know the answer; outlining killed the novelist, and I will stay away from outlining in the future.
As for A Cabin in the Woods, I will continue to work on it, struggling the story out for the class as I’ve pledged to do. I just wish it was a lot more exciting in my mind.
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