Post #245 February 15 2021 “Outlines” As the winter of 2021 rolls on, I am in the middle of preparing to upload another book in my Farpool series. I wanted to share a few words and thoughts about the business of outlining a story before you start writing. 1. Why outline? I can think of several reasons to do this, although every writer is different. First, a good outline (and I know this sounds like high school English, but some things you learned in high school really are true) gives you structure and a solid foundation. You don’t build a house without a foundation and the same is true of a book. The details are in the details, as they say. Also, an outline helps with what I call the ‘blank’ page’ moment of panic. You sit down at your work station and immediately you’re confronted with a blank page. What should I say? How should I say it? An outline can get you started. It’s like a map, pointing out the way to go. Outlines can help with plot problems, before they become serious problems. Doing an outline helps you find those bad old logic holes. They’ll often show up in a good outline, before you ever start writing, so you can deal with them then and the writing hopefully goes a lot more smoothly. Sometimes problems with characters will reveal themselves in an outline. Does this character have sufficient motive to move the story and react to events the way I want him to? Outlines will give you the ability to identify and fix this early on. 2. How much outline is enough? The best answer to this question is to state it like this: your outline is detailed enough when you understand the story well enough to write it comfortably. For me, that’s about 3-4 pages per book chapter. That’s enough detail for me. That’s what I did in the outlines for Time Jumpers. When the story flows and plot developments seem believable, consistent, even a little surprising, you’ve got a good outline. Often, writing an outline will even suggest new and unexpected plot directions you hadn’t thought of before. It’s a lot easier to integrate these into the story at the outline stage than later. Plot changes and logical problems may still develop later (that’s for another post) but outlining will catch a lot of the obvious ones, if done well. 3. What if the story wants to go beyond or outside the outline? Let’s face it, this happens. Ask yourself this: how far off do I want to veer? Is this a completely new direction, at total variance with my concept of the story, or is this just a side trip? Does veering off make sense? It makes sense when it can (1) illuminate character in some way; (2) advance the story in an entertaining and engaging new direction; or (3) when veering off makes a point that needs to be made. Can I get back to the main plot line okay if I take the story in this direction? Or do I have to wave my hands, cobble something out of thin air, rely on magical intervention or something else completely unbelievable to get back to the main plot line? If the main plot line is sound and yet you can justify this unexpected new direction, then go ahead and explore the road less traveled. In a word, if it feels good, do it. Just remember, the reader may or may not feel the same way. Try asking a friend or a fellow writer. You have to be straight and play fair with the reader. And maybe, if this new direction seems like a good idea, go back to an earlier spot in your outline and slip in some hints that this change could happen. Below, I reproduce a chapter outline from Episode 1 of Time Jumpers, so you can see the detail I go into…what works for me. Chapter 1 “Storm Warnings” 1. Start with Cygnus and the crew of 1st TD landing on Kinlok Island, on the planet Storm. It’s time stream T-077. The crew consists of Dringoth, Golich, Acth:On’e, M’Bela, Yang and URME. Their mission: deploy, set up and test the new weapon Time Twister. 2. We follow the crew as they go about this task, which will take several weeks. They are not overly happy about being on this hellhole sewer of a planet. 3. One day, Yang and M’Bela witness the emergence of what seems to be an intelligent marine creature onto the beach. They try to communicate with it, only to find it has some kind of sound suppressor weapon and they are both rendered unconscious for a time when the creature becomes alarmed at their approach and uses the device. After coming to, the creature is gone. They report this to Dringoth and find none of the other crew believes their story. 4. But before the discovery can be explored further, sensors indicate that a small formation of Coethi ships have just jumped out of a local time stream and seem to be in orbit around Storm. Dringoth makes a command decision: Dringoth will take Golich, URME and Yang aboard Cygnus and take off to engage the Coethi. Acth:On’e and M’Bela will stay on Storm and finish deployment of the Time Twister. That’s all I did to get off and running on my story, when I sat down to start writing. You may be different. But this is an approach that works well for me, for the reasons identified above. Try it. The next post to The Word Shed comes on February 22. See you then. Phil B.