More on writing without an outline

Jul 15 2009

Writing fiction is an interesting pursuit. I am always amazed at how stories can take on a life of their own and veer away sharply from even the most carefully crafted outline. How does that happen? I have no idea. But lately, I’ve noticed something else – that the stories I write in my experimental notebook are often easier and more enjoyable to write than those that I carefully plan and outline.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about writing without any sort of plan. Back in April I wrote a post 5 Benefits of writing with a plan where I commented that I’m seeing the benefits of jumping into a writing project head-on without even a basic outline. Well, I’m realizing it even more now and I might stop outlining all future short fiction projects.

Whatever flaws the story has, like holes in the plot, characters that aren’t fully developed, unbelievable settings and typos can always be addressed later by editing and re-writing. My favorite line when talking about rough drafts: Nothing is set in stone.

Perhaps writing in this way, just letting the words flow onto the paper (or computer screen) is closely related to improvisation in music. Improvisation is where a musician will just play without any (or very little) formal arrangement. The results of this type of playing can be mind-blowing, as the musician plays ‘in the moment’.

Maybe writing fiction is meant to be the same way. Maybe writing is meant to be an ‘in the moment’ activity and outlines only hamper that feeling. One of the large ‘functions’ of fiction is to give the reader an escape from the reality that he/she lives in. And if a story is written in a way that is more real than some formulaic outline, then maybe that ‘escapism’ can be enhanced for the reader.

I’m certainly going to experiment with this more and will continue posting about stuff like this in the future. What are your thoughts? Share a comment below and give the world some of your own wisdom.

One Response

I cannot write well when I use an outline. It’s just too much of a constraint and my paragraphs don’t flow. It can be very frustrating, in the end, my final rough draft is crap.

When I just allow my flow to work, my first rough draft is pretty good and I end up spending a week worth of corrections.

So, for me at least, I can not use an outline at all. People have often asked and begged me to use it, but I simply cannot ever use that concept. This format worked well for my journal articles, and for my Masters, but when I incorporated an outline for my PhD thesis, it was simply a disaster.

Catalina 8/18/2010 3:51 pm