#outlining process

I get a lot of asks about my outlining process, so. Behold! A side-by-side of all the writing stages of Chapter 8! 

Le GDrive Link

I don’t mind at all! thanks for asking :D

the short answer is I have an outline and I wrote mostly outside of school and uni (and I don’t count outlining time in that 3 months!). 

I’ll explain the longer answer under the cut hahah (this is draft 3, so strap in if you want to hear my process from my first draft. (boy did it get long)

However, I’ve been analyzing how I write and what sort of style I use to plot. And, by NaNo definitions, I am neither a pure plotter or pantster, but a mixture of both. Which can be good and bad mattering on what I am doing. 

I took a deep look into the manuscripts I’ve been writing. I mainly have 2--one complete and the second halfway complete. However, the first I need to completely rewrite and the second draft I stopped halfway since I realize I already started going off outline and need to redraft it... again. 

And that’s when I had my first realization; that I put too many details in my outline. I don’t always look at my outline while I write. Usually, I look at the main ideas of my outline and write the scene from there, figuring out the setting and dialogue and everything else while I sit and write, which is def a panster trait. However, I need to have the purpose of the scene planned out before I write it or I get too rambly and get too distracted from the plot and stuck. I found my previous outlines really messy for the most part due to this issue.

Another issue is my poor organizational skills. I am... a horrible organizer. Completely awful really. I keep a lot in my brain and on paper don’t always write everything down. And when I do it’s out of order and messy to boot. 

My original outline format was to write down a two sentence plot summary for whatever I am writing (which I still do; it’s useful tbh) and then start drafting what should happen in the beginning, middle, and end, then connect them all together. From there, I write out the entire plot and then write it a second time breaking it into chapters. And I always did that all by hand.

It worked okay for my fanfiction but original story wise it was? Horrible. I think it’s because my fanfictions tend to be simpler and have shorter plots and not be so long. I have no idea. 

So I decided to stop doing all that work and started doing the sticky-note method so I could arrange plot details around and add them in and take them out quickly. It actually helped a lot! I did that on my second manuscript and it’s first draft is a LOT better than my first novel’s first draft. However, I was still having a lot of problems... and didn’t know how to fix it. 

I dunno where or how I stumbled upon this, but I found out a different way to track ideas altogether called “mindmapping” I think it’s sometimes called the “subway method” too (or at least that method is really similar) where you start at points and connect everything together using a infograph of sorts. It’s similar to the sticky-note method except this way, you use arrows and can group and connect large chunks of the plot at a time and at-a-glance see where new subplots begin, end, affect the main plot, merge, and stuff of that sort. 

I’ve been stuck on the new outline for my first novel for over a year now. I finished the thing in 2017 and it is now 2019 and I have made almost no progress on it. But I decided to open up a mindmap, grab my notes, glance over them and start connecting shit together, and also utilize ANOTHER new tool called the “fichtean curve” method for writing that I found and WOW 

I have done more substantial work in two hours than I have in OVER A YEAR 

It’s too early to say if this method is the one for me... I haven’t actually gotten into the rewrite process yet, after all. However. However. I am feeling so much better and these tools I have found have been so helpful for me I cannot believe it. 

And, for the first time in a very long time, I am actually excited about outlining. 

Sometimes, it may just be trying again and again until you eventually find a method that works for you...

and there, I suppose in the future I’ll end up refining it to suit my needs perfectly. 

I mean is not like I'm taking out the romance aspect, the love is still there, the love still changed this characters, but it wasn't enough and they were to far gone to save.