100 Things #006: outlines in action (or: why can't I do this all the time?)

This is a weird, sort of embarrassing post. I almost never show my outlines or story notes because they're an awful mess. Also, the ideas I start with aren't often the ones I end up putting on paper, even in my crappier stories; whatever you see in print on the fic journal was preceded by a more cliche/hackneyed idea that even I couldn't stand to use. So, I have no idea what you (general) consider my skill-level in something like dialogue, but whatever is in my notes will be worse than what you expect from the finished product. Fair warning.

As an example I'll use a fanfic that's been up for a while. I don't feel comfortable using original work in public, and the only story I've outlined to hell and back is an older one I worked on a couple of years ago.

Anyway! This isn't a lesson post or anything. I wrote about outlines earlier, and thought it would be interesting to look at the different ways I use them, and maybe remind myself in the process that hey, you can use these for original fiction too, self. Why don't you?

(Really. Why don't you? :/)

.

When writing a story, I tend to outline for two reasons - to know where I'm going, or to get over a rough spot that's been hanging me up. And lately: plot. Some people may not be surprised to hear that until I read a book that outlined the details of what plot really was, I pretty much didn't bother. If I ended up with a cohesive plot after finishing a story, it was completely by accident. That doesn't mean I didn't outline, just that the purpose of my outlines was to remember stuff, not to arrange it in any kind of order. I had a general "plot" outline of what I wanted to happen in the story I'll be using as my example (The Summer Chronicle), but that was completely inadequate for actually writing a chapter. Sure, X and Y need to happen, but how do I get there from W?

Well, as it turns out, that's what the chapter-level outline is for. These got a little ambitious:

( Examples. Hopefully unfamiliarity with the fandom won't make them incomprehensible. )

Detailed outlining didn't save this story, but it did help me keep track of what was going on over about 120.000 words, and kept me writing a hell of a lot longer than I would have otherwise, I think. This story in particular started with no plot and ended up with a very complicated one that I had to break down into manageable bits every time I sat down to write. It got me thinking that the Summer Chronicle process would be a good way to approach a real novel. I still don't know why I didn't bother to use it. But lately I've been working so hard to keep "fan" and "original" separate in my head that I may be unconsciously neglecting skills I developed for fanfic that would serve me pretty well in original work if I'd only use them.

My method for fic characterization and world-building is another one of these neglected processes. That's not outlining, though, so it has to wait.