This is the second installment in the continuing story of "Editing
Mister D," a joint project to coach British nonfiction writer Pete Oxley
through completion and publication of his first novel-length fiction
work.
We've all heard that an outline is the first step in writing a story
or anything at all lengthy. I'm like you, though. I hate outlining.
Let's face it: outlining a story is about as inspiring and feels about
as creative as copying the first 100 pages of the phone book with a golf
pencil. The sheer drudgery of it can take the wind out of your sails
before you've even begun to get creative. Just the Roman numerals alone
are enough to put me off outlines and just plunge right into the fun
stuff: writing.
There's just one problem with this: you still have to outline.
Now my current project is helping to develop and edit Pete Oxley's Mister D series of steampunk stories. They were written as an expression
of creativity, and of course, he hoped to get some feedback and work
from there. Although he currently has two short stories on Wattpad,
they are tied together by common characters, and were intended as the
first two parts of a longer compilation with its own complex story arc.
Unfortunately, I felt the stories didn't quite fit together, and I
couldn't get a feel for the larger story.
As part of our joint
project, we were analyzing his story in some depth, and I asked him for a
copy of his "story arc" notes, which he sent me. This document was
chock-a-block with some very intriguing concepts and possible plot
points, but it still didn't quite hang together. In short, he had a box
of bones when what he really needed was a skeleton.
One
of the most oft-repeated maxims in the scribbling biz is: "write down
the bones," which can be misinterpreted a thousand ways. For me,
"writing down the bones" means writing my entire story out in Dick and
Jane terms:
Opening scene: Augustus is dragging Maxwell through the snow
He hears noises behind him; he is being chased
Though he is not religious, he prays
... and so on
That's
my outline. No Roman numerals. No tab stops. No special writing software. Just sequential lines
of simple text that spell out all of the action so I can follow my story
from beginning to end before I really get down to the business of
writing. It doesn't have to be terribly detailed, as long as all of the cause and effect and major occurrences are included. With just this bony structure, logical leaps and continuity
errors stick out like, well, a broken bone. Once I've built a sound
skeleton, I can flesh it out however I want. I can copy and paste and
rearrange at will without worrying about an outline hierarchy. Simple,
yes?
Here's the best part. Once I have my skeleton, I can add
bits and pieces right in that document. If a snippet of dialogue comes
to me, I scroll down and plop it roughly where it belongs. If I find
something relevant in my research, I paste the link right there in the
document. Sometimes, writing and research combine to create a new
insight that utterly escaped me as I was building my skeleton, or
sometimes I start writing at some point and find myself on wild tear,
ignoring the outline and just letting 'er rip. No problem. I can
always compare later to see if I need to make any adjustments, either to
my new prose or to the outlined portion. It really couldn't be simpler.
So that is what Pete is doing now: diligently arranging his bones into a proper skeleton. Not an outline, you understand. A skeleton.
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