Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, I have learned how to make outlines work. I sort of saw how other people used them but it took a long time to figure out how to make them work. Maybe it’s because I’m neurodiverse. Maybe I just missed it by a mile. For whatever reason, it took a long time to get here, and I want to talk about my process to get to where I am.
My first novel I pantsed almost completely. I definitely did the whole brainstorming thing, and I sort of kept a rough idea of where everything I thought up was supposed to go, but a lot of it I just wrote as I came to it. Even that wasn’t set down on paper. My notes were scattered across digital documents and paper and my brain, and a lot of it I had no idea, just a vague “something cool happens” that I told myself I’d figure out when I got there. I didn’t have an ending for something like a year because I glossed over that part of the story completely. And that was part of why it took eight years to finish it.
Part of it too was inexperience. Writing an entire novel is a different process from writing a short story, essay, or poem. It’s intense because there are so many details to keep track of. Characters and settings and outfits, plot threads (in my opinion you need at least two), and what the characters did last and are supposed to do next. It was even different than the novellas I had previously finished, which were roughly 10,000 words and structured more like a serial than a traditional novella.
Some of it too, though, was learning how my brain best functioned on such an arduous project. Savior of the Damned is my fourth book and the first one I was able to whip into publishing shape. And it was learning more than just storytelling. It was learning how to do revisions and edits and deleting crutch words. It was doing my own developmental edits and line edits, to get it as cleaned up as possible before anyone else saw it. It was a lot to figure out. There were numerous times I thought I couldn’t hack it. That I wouldn’t be able to figure out how it was all supposed to work. There were multiple breaks, mostly between lengthy editing sessions, where I wondered if it would all come together. I did a ton of research too, on how to do it all. Copious notes and practice and sleepless nights. But through it all, I came back to it. I’m looking at twelve different drafts, but it takes as many as it takes to get something publishable. The reason it took so many drafts though was because I trimmed each draft down to the bare minimum I needed. Instead of deleting all my crutch words, for example, I used the find function and deleted each word one by one. I did the same with excessive dialogue tags.
But this is also a series, and I had to learn through experience how to carry plot threads through, and which ones to resolve. I had to sort out how to not just carry those plot threads, but how to resolve them in a satisfying way as well. Four novels and two short story collections were a massive undertaking, and that was where a lot of my plotting skills took off. Structuring the whole series to fit neatly into one package, with everything resolved enough to be satisfying almost did me in. Nights spent crying at the keyboard because it was overwhelming, taking breaks to give my brain a rest from the effort of making it all come together in a way that my ideal reader will gush over, it was no small feat.
But it was there I learned how to make outlines work. Structuring them was one thing. I knew how to format bullet points and all that, and to an extent, I knew how to utilize them from college. But still, transferring that knowledge and experience from school essays to fiction books broke my brain. I didn’t know what information was necessary, or how to succinctly summarize the points I needed to hit on each chapter. It was easier when I was taking notes while studying in college in some respects. The problem was getting that knowledge base to transfer.
What unlocked it for me was outlining some essays for eventual publication. I didn’t know how to make it work for books or short stories, but I worked out how to translate my notes into an outline for some essays, which made it click. Using bullet points to highlight the parts of the essay I wanted to make sure I hit, and summarizing each section of the essay in an easy-to-understand way made it make sense. I could suddenly see where everything went, and how to actually do it in a way that made sense.
I still pants things. I don’t write in-depth summaries, I just jot down the important details (Characters, scene setting, brief idea of how it will play out) but it works. It works! And for the sections I pants, if I don’t know what comes next to bridge the gap, I can outline the sections I skipped over so I don’t stall at a sticky point.
Because my outlines are so bare bones some of my outlining takes place after I finish the first draft too. Making sure it’s all concise and doesn’t contradict itself and that I hit every major point after I reach the end is still an important step for me. I suspect in fact that many pantsers just outline after the fact. The first draft is just you telling yourself the story after all. That’s why my favorite part is the revisions. Revisions are where the magic happens. Where the rough draft becomes a shiny new story ready for consumption. That’s the most exciting part for me, even with all the pain it’s caused over the years. All these years later it’s still magical to see it unfold. Twenty-plus years of honing my craft and the exhilaration of going from a rough draft to a finished story is something that’s hard to beat.
But still, I did it. I learned how to outline and where it fits into my process, and I am positively thrilled. This was the stickiest part for me because my brain couldn’t sort out how to make it work. My brain just couldn’t fathom how to turn my note-taking process into an actual outline for an embarrassingly long time, while allowing my brain the space to pants between the important points.
I’m sure my process will evolve over time and with each project, but that’s okay. The way I outline novels is different from my short stories and essays after all. It’s common enough that I’m not worried about that. I’m just excited I was finally able to sort it out enough to make it work for me.