To Outline or Not to Outline?

That is the question. Har har har.

Actually, that is one of my favorite things about writing! A lot of the "how to" is purely subjective. What works for you? Then do that! Well, within reason. You can't go murder someone just to see if it would work out the way you think in your story.

When it comes to planning your story, there are all kinds of ways of doing it-- from zero planning, totally seat-of-the-pants writing with no notes or foreknowledge of where the story is headed, to a complete detailed outline, scene by scene, for the entire story. And of course every variation in between.

For myself, I find that I need some kind of goal for the scene. Otherwise my characters wind up looking at each other saying "Now what?" Literally. I started noticing that a few years back, and finally figured out that my problem was that nobody knew where this runaway train was headed! Not the characters, not the author! That's no good.

So I found that if I had a goal for each scene-- A, B, and C are going to happen, and the reader needs to learn X, Y, and Z about the hero/heroine-- my scenes suddenly sprung to life in a new way! They had purpose! They advanced the plot! The story began to move forward rather than in circles.

That's about the extent of my outlining. To a degree, I know chapter by chapter what my goals are as far as major events. But it's not set in stone. I am a firm believer in the idea that if you create three-dimensional characters, they'll come to life and surprise you! With my latest work-in-progress, it is no different. And those unexpected twists and turns are among the best in the whole story. An entire character showed up that I hadn't foreseen. But she adds a deeper dimension to the story. So I forgive her for crashing my party.

I do think it's a good idea to jot notes on any plot elements that occur to you. Be careful that they aren't cryptic. Once I made an outline for a story that included a line like, "Chapter 10: CJ's New Year's Eve Plan." At one time that must have made sense. Now, though... I couldn't tell you what that meant. Apparently it was a secret, and it's above my pay grade.

I suggest starting a notebook or a Word document to keep track of the bits and pieces you think of for your story. Never trust your brain to keep track of it all. I tend to use a table in Word or Excel to jot chapter or scene goals and a small notebook to jot notes I think of on the fly.

Happy writing!