So you may be asking yourself, why would it take 3 months to outline a novel? Isn't it just a couple bullet points or roman numerals? You wrote 50,000 words in a month, surely you can knock out an outline in an afternoon. To which I say, hey...shut up. And also, no it probably won't take me an entire three months to outline this novel, but it will take longer than an afternoon.
I've written a lot of things, some of them good, some of them reeaaaaally not. But the only thing I've ever actually outlined were academic papers. Which probably explains why most of the novel manuscripts languishing in the bowels of my external hard drive look more like Frankenstein's monster than fully functioning stories. If outlining is equivalent to building the skeleton upon which the muscles and heart and skin of the story will eventually be layered over, my previous approach to novel-writing was something more like a six year old given a pack of playdough and zero concept of anatomy. Flesh and bones and pretty makeup were all glommed on in the same clumsy motion with the promise that it could all be fixed in post (aka revisions). Guess what? Sometimes it's easier to knock the whole sucker down and start from scratch instead of trying to reverse engineer a solid structure (yes, I'm mixing my metaphors but I stand by it).
Having tried it one way without much success, I'm taking a different approach this time around. But the thing is, I have no idea what I'm doing! As I said, the only writing projects I've ever outlined were academic papers which isn't really the same thing. I'm extremely familiar with the persuasive structure of academic papers (and marketing pitches for that matter), with each piece of the outline providing evidence that sways the reader towards my conclusion. But there are like a million different story structures and I don't have nearly the same intuitive grasp on them as I do the persuasive structure. So I'm learning. What's the shape of this story? What conventions are absolutely necessary to build a functioning story and which ones can I tweak or fudge? How much detail do I need before I actually start writing? And oh yea, how long is this novel actually going to be? Should I throw those other ideas in there or stick them in a parking lot for a potential sequel? So many questions!
So the three-month deadline is as much about giving myself a kick in the pants as it is about taking the pressure off and giving myself the time to learn the rules and conventions and explore what process works best for me.
I've written a lot of things, some of them good, some of them reeaaaaally not. But the only thing I've ever actually outlined were academic papers. Which probably explains why most of the novel manuscripts languishing in the bowels of my external hard drive look more like Frankenstein's monster than fully functioning stories. If outlining is equivalent to building the skeleton upon which the muscles and heart and skin of the story will eventually be layered over, my previous approach to novel-writing was something more like a six year old given a pack of playdough and zero concept of anatomy. Flesh and bones and pretty makeup were all glommed on in the same clumsy motion with the promise that it could all be fixed in post (aka revisions). Guess what? Sometimes it's easier to knock the whole sucker down and start from scratch instead of trying to reverse engineer a solid structure (yes, I'm mixing my metaphors but I stand by it).
Having tried it one way without much success, I'm taking a different approach this time around. But the thing is, I have no idea what I'm doing! As I said, the only writing projects I've ever outlined were academic papers which isn't really the same thing. I'm extremely familiar with the persuasive structure of academic papers (and marketing pitches for that matter), with each piece of the outline providing evidence that sways the reader towards my conclusion. But there are like a million different story structures and I don't have nearly the same intuitive grasp on them as I do the persuasive structure. So I'm learning. What's the shape of this story? What conventions are absolutely necessary to build a functioning story and which ones can I tweak or fudge? How much detail do I need before I actually start writing? And oh yea, how long is this novel actually going to be? Should I throw those other ideas in there or stick them in a parking lot for a potential sequel? So many questions!
So the three-month deadline is as much about giving myself a kick in the pants as it is about taking the pressure off and giving myself the time to learn the rules and conventions and explore what process works best for me.
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