Outlining Debate Revisited: Are we asking the wrong question?

One debate that continues for fiction writers is whether or not to use an outline for planning your story in advance, or to just write and let the story develop on its own. I’ve written about this at least twice before, the last time was back in July in my post More on writing without an outline. In that post I argued that maybe it is better for the story to be more spontaneous and to let it develop as it is written. But even since writing that post, I’m still sitting on the fence about whether or not to use an outline at all.

Recently I found myself debating the outlining question when I then read this post by Larry Brooks SOLVED: The Outlining vs. Organic Writing Debate over at the blog Write To Done. This is an amazing post and has really changed the way I think about the age old writing debate about outlining.

The premise of the post is this: The question about whether or not to use an outline is the wrong question to ask. We should instead be focusing on story architecture:

The issue isn’t about outlining.  The issue is simply the degree of foundational story architecture awareness that a writer brings to their process.

Without story architecture, both processes ultimately fail.  Stories will come out convoluted, one dimensional, poorly paced and ultimately rejected.

With story architecture in the mix, the story emerges as a well-oiled machine.  The only question then becomes: is your story compelling, or not?

I love this way of thinking! Sometimes the most basic questions we ask ourselves about simple things are the wrong questions to be asking. This is critical thinking at its best and as the old cliche` goes it’s ‘Thinking outside the box.’

The argument Larry Brooks is using is that it is the story architecture that counts. Outlining and organic writing are merely two ways of achieving the same result – a well-crafted story. For people who just write and never use an outline, they are using that first draft to get the architecture of the story out of their heads and onto paper. Outliners do the same thing, they just do it before writing the first draft.

Seeing the outlining debate like this makes the whole question a moot one. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps the best sentence of Larry Brooks’ entire post comes at the end, and is in bold:

Outlining is optional.  Story architecture isn’t.  Debate over.

In other words this whole debate is just splitting hairs over two different means to the same end. As long as the story architecture is solid, the whole question of outlining doesn’t matter.

Related posts

• 5 tips to organize your writing
• 5 Benefits of writing without a plan
• To outline, or not to outline!
• More on writing without an outline
• Don’t give up on that writing project!

Read More: Writing, Writing Tips