Outliner Envy
A writing journal about outlining, discovery writing, and trusting the messy process
Although progress on the novel has been slow due to finals, moving out of my dorms, and leaving for my trip to the UK, I am still making progress. Time has become limited with my new job and current summer course that has been a lot more reading than I anticipated, but it’s a class on Fairy Tales, so I’ve been enjoying it.
During the second half of the summer, I’ll also be taking a Victorian Monsters course and a Film class about cults. I know these classes will be especially useful to me for Project Vampire Western which is exciting.
During this lull I’ve been reading books for both inspiration and learning story structure. Towards the end of my Spring quarter I read Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. This novel about a French Catholic bishop that becomes the Apostolic Vicar of New Mexico gave me a fantastic sense of place regarding the natural landscape. Spoiler alert: there are lots of red and orange, but also more green than you might think. The religious aspect was interesting as well, though it was from the French perspective rather than the traditional Spanish one my book is more concerned with. Next up on my list is Bless Me, Ultima by Rodolfo Anaya to learn more about the curanderas of New Mexico. If you have any book recommendations, by the way, please do let me know!
Meanwhile, I have nearly finished Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. This has really helped me understand what he calls The Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing: Concept, Character, Theme, Story Structure, Scene Execution, and Writing Voice. If you want to read about them in more detail, then I highly recommend that you pick up the book for yourself.
While I don’t necessarily agree with every single minute detail he asserts, these are largely very helpful guidelines for any writer. Someone in my writing critique group actually recommended it to me, and they are a lot like me. They also lean towards discovery writing and don’t like formulas.
In the book, he breaks each core competency down quite thoroughly and explains the importance of each one, describing it as being much like the ingredients to a cake. As I read, however, I kept trying to move towards outlining my story, even if it was only a rough sketch. Brooks shows a slight preference for outlining, if only because it prevents the multiple rewrites that are required of organic storytellers. Regardless of what side of the spectrum a writer falls, however, they should have a firm grasp of story structure if they want to write a book that will actually sell.
Now, I am not too concerned with writing a book specifically for the market, but I would like to at least try publishing it traditionally first. My plan is to write the book however it needs to be written for my catharsis to be satisfied, and worry about the rest later. I’ve been seeing plenty of interest on Substack at least for a western horror, so I do have hopes in that regard.
For the past month or so, however, I’ve found myself developing a case of what I like to call outliner envy.
Why is it that every time I sit down to try and write even a rough version of an outline, it feels stale? Why can none of the ideas swimming in my head amount to even a loose skeleton? God, sometimes I think it would be so much easier to write with a detailed outline at my side!
But, as it turns out, I just might have to accept that discovery writing can serve as my outline. This was the conclusion I came to just the other day. It was a little bit frustrating, but I was comforted in knowing that I’ve been studying story structure to equip myself on that journey. Once I finish this last little bit of the bare minimum foundational research, I’ll be doing just that. Zero drafting, vomit drafting, elfing—whatever you want to call it—has already proven to be a huge asset when it comes to getting my ideas out onto the page. From start to finish, I just write what comes to mind and clean it up later. I can worry about making it sound pretty afterwards. When I first started writing seriously, I would fixate on making the sentences sound right, hanging on every word like they would detonate upon choosing the wrong one. This is fine to do when you’re polishing a draft, but not when you’re just trying to get something out.
My hope is that by embracing this messy process with a solid understanding of story structure, I will be well on my way towards publishing this novel. I also think a part of me has been procrastinating through my research, telling myself I need to do more before I am even ready to even put more words to the page. What I need to remember though, is that only by doing the actual damn writing will I be able to find exactly what I need to research and be more efficient in doing so. The fact that I’ve been absolutely itching to do creative writing since I’ve started this whole damn project should have made this obvious. Maybe it’s time to listen to that damn creative muse who is trying to get my attention.
Have any other writers felt outliner envy? Where do you fall on the outlining vs discovery paradigm? Are you somewhere in between? I might be somewhere in that middle space, but leaning towards discovery. I would love to hear more input from other creatives out there.
Ever since publicly announcing that I am starting this project it has really lit a fire under my ass, so to speak, and motivated me to push myself in learning the art of novel writing. I’ll be the first to admit that I have no fucking idea what the hell I am doing, but I am doing my damn best to write the best novel that I can. There will be more updates to come, including an exclusive extended update for paid subscribers that gives you even more behind-the-scenes insight into my process.
Thank you again to all my readers for joining me along this journey. It means the world to me. Here’s to manifesting and working towards my goal of putting this book on the bookstore shelves!
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I love following along with your journey! And your fairy tale class sounds so cool!
I'm self-aware and humble enough to know that my writing sucks. Period.
So I did what any respectable writer ought to do: Research and Learn.
I did. It was fun. I still have some YouTubers I follow and listen to which have really helped me to organize the mess in my head. I was so inspired to do things right and efficiently, having my words have a nice guardrail and not getting halfway into the story and actually know where to go to next. I learned when a story warrants multiple books, learned structures and brainstorming techniques. I don't have enough words to describe how grateful I am for the knowledge I gained.
But my creativity tanked. I had the tools to write a good story but I lost my story. I never knew what Writer's Block was until I heard these people give advice to combat it. Now I had vicious Writer's Block. Suddenly I wasn't bonding with my stories, or my characters. The ideas were lovely on paper but I had no desire to write them at all. To make matters worse, my brain has the tendency to Daydream and disconnect the minute thinking becomes "too difficult and confusing".
So I decided to do an experiment: Discovery writing.
I'm deathly against double work, so I decided to challenge myself in doing something I normally don't do: Write Fanfiction. I know, most people start with it, but I usually can't for the life of me write other people's characters. It just feels like sacrilege and like I'm viciously incompetent, especially when it's a character I like. But because it's Fanfiction I could get myself to not care about the work because it's never going to do anything anyway.
101,663 words in just over 3 months. I kid you not. I got a Hook, Inciting Incident, Build Up, Midpoint Twist, Progress, Pinch Points, Darkest Moment, Aha-Moment, Climax and a Resolution to boot in there. Yeah, there's a couple of subplots that need to be added, and lots of the main plot could be slimmed for stronger results. But it's there. It exists. Whole thing.
I tried a new Original Story with the intent of doing the exact same but because I love ranting about my scene to scene progress I wanted my sister to read it. I felt embarrassed giving her a completely raw piece so I started outlining again ... That first chapter I wrote before outlining is all that got written. The minute I outlined, the story died.
Now I'm writing the characters and events pre-outline and the writing is going good. I'm going to allow them to dictate what happens next.
If you're a plotter, plot. But some us NEED Discovery Writing. And that's okay. Draft 0 is far more likely to re-inspire you anyway.
(P.S. Sorry for the long comment)