As far as losing that sense of mystery if you outline too much, I used to feel the same way. But over-outlining/over-plotting are good terms for that problem, because it's only something I run into when I go too far with that first stage. Outlining by scene is one thing; outlining what everyone will say, and what their gestures will be, DOES take the fun out of writing it unless you're doing that to solve a problem. It's already written. Not gracefully or skillfully, but it's there, and somebody could probably follow it. So there's your story.
Unfortunately, in my experience - like I said above - trying to find the happy medium between "rambling, summarizing paragraph" and "over-detailed plot outline" ends with me not following the plot I worked so hard to build. I guess the effort isn't wasted, since you can probably salvage parts of the outline. It's a decent exercise. But as the backbone of a story? Just doesn't work out that way when I try it.
I've ditched fic ideas for lack of plot too, though. It came to my attention (slowly) that my better stories tended to have accidental plot arcs, usually because I had very clear ideas for what I wanted. When starting with ideas that weren't as clear, plot felt more necessary, especially when the story might be long, and so there were a lot of things I didn't write because I wasn't up to the task. Didn't think I could maintain it, or whatever. And there's always the chance it'll turn into a huge mess, or you'll write yourself into a hole, and I didn't feel I was allowed to do that. Don't even mention drafting, because ha, no. Not for an epic-length fanfic. Perish the thought.
(I am actually unwilling to do that, but for... reasons.)
But damn I hit 10,000 words and there's no sign of stopping. I even outlined it briefly by scene.
Well, if you end up worrying about word count for real, you can shave it down afterwords. Or have a beta reader help with that, if you know people who are willing. But the number of words ends up being irrelevant if they're all good words.
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Unfortunately, in my experience - like I said above - trying to find the happy medium between "rambling, summarizing paragraph" and "over-detailed plot outline" ends with me not following the plot I worked so hard to build. I guess the effort isn't wasted, since you can probably salvage parts of the outline. It's a decent exercise. But as the backbone of a story? Just doesn't work out that way when I try it.
I've ditched fic ideas for lack of plot too, though. It came to my attention (slowly) that my better stories tended to have accidental plot arcs, usually because I had very clear ideas for what I wanted. When starting with ideas that weren't as clear, plot felt more necessary, especially when the story might be long, and so there were a lot of things I didn't write because I wasn't up to the task. Didn't think I could maintain it, or whatever. And there's always the chance it'll turn into a huge mess, or you'll write yourself into a hole, and I didn't feel I was allowed to do that. Don't even mention drafting, because ha, no. Not for an epic-length fanfic. Perish the thought.
(I am actually unwilling to do that, but for... reasons.)
But damn I hit 10,000 words and there's no sign of stopping. I even outlined it briefly by scene.
Well, if you end up worrying about word count for real, you can shave it down afterwords. Or have a beta reader help with that, if you know people who are willing. But the number of words ends up being irrelevant if they're all good words.