onward, from outline

[marycatelli]

sigh

It's easier, in some respects, to outline than to write the story.

If only because it moves much more swiftly.  Inspiration can stiffen up in writing it out as well as in outlining, and outlining, for most of it, gives an easy chance to stuff all sorts of bright-eyed plot bunnies in here and in there, because the structure is still malleable -- in writing it out, any change is going to require alterations, not just devising new things in the future.  And then there's the brute fact of knocking out the prose.  It's much easier to write that when Murgatroy saw something down at the river, half the party left to investigate, while the rest stayed investigating a way into the castle than to write the scene.  And then there's the endless revision. . . hopefully not endless.

Because while outlining is the easiest for me, there have been times when I've been caught endlessly writing, or endlessly revising.  All of which have to be done in proportion.  If done in perfect proportion, the stories would finish in due course and get hurled over the wall to the waiting markets.  But as it stands, even sitting in the chair, fingers on the keyboard or pen in hand, is no guarantee that you're not vacuuming the cat.

Comments

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Oh,yes, on the outlining being more fun! At least the first stage of the outlining, when you're happily throwing in a faun with an umbrellla here, then further down a blank page Father Christmas, and further yet a Lion....

That's more fun than the next stage, where you fill in the blank lines to tell how all the different pieces got where they need to be.

[marycatelli]

Adding the dull infrastructure. John Gardner observed that writing exercises were like much of the writing life, which was spent working on things not because you felt inspired but because you desperately needed them to make other story elements and events plausible or even possible.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

The wisdom to know the difference! Ie, which scenes need/deserve inspiration and flourishes, and which are just get the facts in place for the interesting stuff that comes later.

[marycatelli]

Sometimes the infrastructure needs details and flourishes. IIRC, his example was that a storm needed to be adequately frightening to explain why a character made a frantic phone call.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I'd think that would depend on how important the character, and the phone call, were. With too many flourishes, the storm might become the most interesting thing in the story.

I Googled Gardner and found this, which might be the key.

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/psychic-distance-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it.html

[marycatelli]

That's not a flaw in the storm but in the rest.