I Can't Outline!
I get a lot of people who tell me that outlines are a neat idea, but they’re not for them. They’ve tried outlining their books because they heard how it helps some authors write faster, but it just doesn’t work for them.
After working with a lot of authors and artists and electricians and… people with electrical and teens and mechanics who all have this superpower-like strength to find every excuse on the planet as a reason to stop trying, I can tell you with 100% certainty that you’re correct. If trying that outline approach didn’t feel right or made the book writing process harder, then it wasn’t a great fit.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an outlining process that works for you.
Breaking the Rules
One of the things I’ve been doing a lot of is breaking people’s view of what’s right. Here in Alaska, we don’t get the best of the best. They don’t migrate to a place that’s hard to live. They’re smarter and stay where it’s easier to thrive. Instead, we get a lot of rebels and rejects.
One of the things I’m running up against, though, is that most rebels and rejects grow up with this belief that there’s something wrong with them. They just don’t fit in.
Creatives who can’t outline books are the same. They’ve been told their entire author career that something’s wrong with them because they can’t write 50K every month, or write 10K every Saturday, or outline a book and then actually follow it. They’ve been told they’ll never make it.
Well, guess what? I’m an outliner, and I can’t follow an outline either. I write a different type of outline for each book I write and half the time, I end up modifying it midway through. I used to get really upset about this. I thought I was wasting time by not getting it right the first time.
However, living in Alaska while going through menopause has given me a lot of perspective!
This is a creative process! There is no “getting it right the first time.” I mean, yes. If I bought an outline, it sucks that I can’t use the entire thing the way it was written, and it would save me some editing cost and time to be able to get structurally correct the first time through. However, that only matters if I’m a machine. I’m not building mass produced cars. I’m telling stories, and sometimes those stories are a lot like life. They change when situations arise that require a choice, and that choice might seem like a good idea at the time of the outline, but as you’re actually telling the story, information may evolve that modifies what you and your characters feel are the right choice.
Three Rules To Unlearn
So, the first thing you need to do is know that the standard view of an outline is wrong. Well, it’s not wrong. It’s just not always right. Having the beats or chapters lined up in a row and having a detailed description of what happens in each one isn’t always the right approach.
The second thing you need to realize is that your outline is as fluid as your creative river is. If you have a river that changes course regularly, then you need a flexible approach. If your creative river flows the same way like you’re in the Grand Canyon, then you need flexibility, but you still need the ability to shift if necessary. Even canyons have branches.
The third thing you need to understand is that you’re not wrong for testing different approaches out. You’re not going to know how to do everything perfectly from the beginning. That’s just now how life works. If that’s how life works for you, I’m sorry. Sometime very soon, you’re going to be handed a large box of lemons and you’re not going to know how to deal with it.
Energy Management
The real key is energy management. The outline helps you through the marathon. It helps you stay focused when your energy is high and keeps you writing when your energy is low.
In order to understand the type of outline you need, you need to know what kind of storms you’re preparing for. How low is your low and what does it look like? How high is your high and how does that impact your story?
Before you can go into an outline, you have to know what you’re building. The outline is the warehouse you build your story in before you take it outside.
Give Yourself A Little Grace
I suck at this part. I’m a perfectionist who is really hard on herself each time she leaps out of the chute and doesn’t perform at 150% or better. There are reasons, but that’s a trauma response. That’s not a great way to live your life. You cannot be 100% one hundred percent of the time! Yes. I wrote that in numbers and in words on purpose. You have to allow yourself to wander and grow and learn and explore and… be curious!
Learn about the parts of your personality that are working for you and then figure out your weaknesses and create supports for them. That might mean that your book outlines are more like a notebook full of sticky notes that can move. Or it might mean that your outline looks more like a roadmap than a structured chapter breakout. Or your outline might look like a bunch of beats with a word or two at some and large paragraphs for others. Or! It might look like audio files you collected of you and your girlfriends’ brainstorming session.
It’s okay to explore. You’re learning how you work best and, let me just say, you’ll be doing this for a long time.
Going Over The Big Personality Hurdles
The first thing we’re going to review are the big personality hurdles:
This is based on the Meyers Briggs assessment, which isn’t the end-all be-all. It is, however, where most of my notes stem from because that was the assessment I was introduced to when I was in Denver, working for a big electrical contractor. That’s where I discovered my personality issues and started digging into how to fit in better, or, in my case, started trying to “fix” what was “wrong” with me. There are several other personality tests out there. I might dig into those or I might touch on a few here and there, but this is where I will focus most of my time.
You’ll learn how your personality type affects how you manage:
Character arcs
Story shape
Details
Beat structure
Let’s dig into how each of these pairs handles things like organization and brainstorming! In the next series of posts, we’ll look at each one in depth.
