In January and February,
stacia_kane had a wonderful series of posts here at FFF about the three-act structure. During the
first post (concerning, not surprisingly, Act One), a related discussion broke out in the comments over our feelings/preferences regarding outlines. I made kind of a long-winded comment about something I'd noticed:
(
Edited version of Jeri's ruminations. )
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I'm one of those writers who doesn't write in a linear fashion. I have scenes from different points in the story written and have to connect them all together. As I get scenes written, I have to figure out where they go in the book and what comes between them, and that's where the sort-of outline helps.
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I love your icon--Eeyore is my hero! :-)
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I've followed this technique faithfully for eight books now.
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Mmmm....spreadsheets.
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I have a Mac and this company doesn't do a Mac version, so I just created a story board in Powerpoint. The nice thing is once you've created one, you can just do a SAVE AS with a new file for another story. Then you just clear out the 'stickies' you've created and fill it with different data and change the colors as needed.
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I always say that too many people think of an outline as a corset, restrictive and hard and asphyxiating; created well, it's more like a sports bra. Not everybody needs one, but for those of us who do, it's incredibly helpful support that helps us do more. :)
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OK, THAT is the best analogy I've ever heard. I promise to credit you if I ever use it elsewhere. ;-)
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Ooh, the urge to run amok with an extended analogy is almost overwhelming. Thanks for the giggle.
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Then I noticed that by the time I got to the end of my book, I'd forgotten several of the cool details (or scenes) that I'd wanted to include initially, and that made me really unhappy (and usually involved massive rewrites).
So I've reached a compromise of sorts. I grab an idea and "pants" it out for a few chapters, until I start running out of steam and there's more in my head than I can keep track of. At that point, I pause, write a bullet-point outline (just so I remember, not enough to kill it) at the end of my document and eat up the bullets as I write.
It works pretty well for me. :)
- Jill Myles
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It's wonderful to get a glimpse of everyone's unique processes--I'm picking up so many new ideas
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