#warrenellis

Because an outline isn’t really writing. It’s construction, assemblage of elements in order. It’s structural. It’s finding the shape of the story. It’s not writing. Writing happens when you’re telling the story: it’s the human breath inside it, it’s finding the interactions and responses around planned events in the moment of living them in the story, it’s the act of discovering all the nuances and sounds of the story as you fully tell it. MOBY DICK is a straightforward outline but the outline doesn’t prepare you for the qualities of the story as it is told. You cannot predict every second of what the story will tell. And if you try to? You’re just transcribing a technical document. Insert previously machined “emotion button” here. I can show you the frame of a story in advance, but I can’t tell you what colour the wallpapers will be until I’ve started living in the place. You live it in the telling, and you can’t plan it all out in advance without ending up with a lifeless story. Warren Ellis, 2024 Orbital Operation

"If you’re one of the people who needs to make things - and I think a lot of the people reading this are - then the first need is to do experiments. The world doesn’t need more of what it’s got. It needs new things. It’s not making the things you see, so much as it is making things with what you see. Combining elements with your own tastes and lived experiences. Maybe find yourself some time soon to just sit and think about that for a bit." -Warren Ellis, Orbital Operations, 09/24/23