So I was listening to a local radio program I catch it sometimes on Friday afternoons.. called “Connor Calling” it’s a bit of an odd duck with a guy who interviews authors. (Usually local) They were talking about what KIND of writer people are and how the do it. I found myself agreeing quite a bit with the gentleman they were interviewing that day. I had to ask myself, am I an outline writer, or not?
See when I wrote Oversee of One, I didn’t outline, I didn’t do anything. I sat down and just wrote. The main issue I had was figuring out where I wanted the story to go next. The plus side was I found it in a way more interesting to write because I didn’t already KNOW where it was going. So I guess it was both a plus and a minus. I just had an idea, and crafted a story around 1 idea. “A guy lives and works underground in a sphere, alone.” And made a story out of that.
For the second part of the story.. I created an outline. A basic one. I sort of plotted out where I wanted the ‘high points’ of the story to go. It wasn’t big on details, but it gave me a guideline. which helped, but I also found it a bit, more restrictive. For the combined book, Project: Perspective, I only added a chapter or two, which I had already written but cut from the other two stories. So it worked.
For the book I’m working on now, I created a full three or four sentence synopsis of each chapter. I’m writing the story off that outline. I’m actually finding this harder by far than writing off the seat of my pants. I’ve changed things up already, and modified the outline, but still, it’s not flowing the same way. I promised myself I’d finish this story this way, but I think the next book, I’ll go back to what worked for me, which was having a single sentence and going from there. It works better for me by far.
