Outlines

[Deleted member 68927]

Does an outline have to be written completely, before one starts with the writing?

 

[Deleted member 146224]

Nope, just outline far enough to have some leeway while writing and working on the rest

 

[Deleted member 68927]

Nope, just outline far enough to have some leeway while writing and working on the rest

I have the first 5 chapters outlined, but I am too tired to outline more. Tomorrow evening I will outline some more. Thank you for the advice! Now I will read some before going to sleep.

 

[melchi]

I'm bad I don't really outline. For gaming on a mud is difficult I was just adapting from a journal.

For Magical girl there is no outline, I just sorta have an idea where I want to get to eventually and most of the chapters are steps to get that way that fit the theme I was going for.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I don't know.

 

[BlackKnightX]

Nope. I just plan what I really need to start the story as soon as possible. But because I want more cohesiveness in my new project, a lot of things need to be foreshadowed and planned out from the start, so it takes quite a bit of time and efforts. But I leave the details of later stuff pretty vague and ready for change.

 

[georgelee5786]

No

 

[TsumiHokiro]

Outline as much as you can. They're guidelines, not the real chapters. Which means you can stop whenever you want.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Nope.

 

[Tempokai]

Outline is the guide to follow haphazardly, so no

 

[TheEldritchGod]

What is this "outline" you speak of?

 

[J_Chemist]

No.

 

[Mortrexo]

I would recommend that, if you want the story to have good pacing and coherence while connecting different arcs, try to at least think in which direction you want your story to go. Try to divide it into "arcs" and try to think of a few ideas for the following one or two arcs, an arc spanning from 20 to 80 chapters (2k words~ each chapter). Later, you can change your mind, modify them, etc. But, if you are serious about writing, and it is not a temporal fling and hobby, doing this much is a bare minimum, in my opinion.

Also, an outline is a direction, so it would, at most, take 500~ words to sort these ideas that you can then transform into a story by fleshing everything in between and adding the spontaneous ideas you might come up with.

 

[Tsuru]

Does an outline have to be written completely, before one starts with the writing?

It depends

What you ask is similar to :
As a painter, should they imagine the end result in your brain before even starting ? Or should simply draw step by step hence getting end result ?

And well, the answer is also the answer to your question.
You should do what fit the person.

Also not everyone is like Andur (royalroad author), this giga brain crazy inhuman genius, that imagine the whole (short) book before starting, and creating a whole multiverse with his books, with the same MC and FL reincarnated, with different personalities after reincarnating, writing magic but also sci-fi and even magic x sci-fi space that makes sense, ALL THAT before even the term "multiverse" appeared in cinema with marvel movies.

 

[Rhaps]

Does an outline have to be written completely, before one starts with the writing?

Lmao. I began as and still am a Dungeon Master.
The only outline I planned is the Beginning and the Ending.

Everything in between? Random bullshit go!!

 

[Tyranomaster]

There are varying degrees of outlining. I never outline my chapters directly, but I do outline. My outlines involve the whole story, and each volume. A checklist of events and points that are to occur. Everything else is improv. Of course, I have some experience DMing for D&D and so that format works well for me, since it plays similarly to running a campaign.

 

[l8rose]

Personally, I don't write full outlines. Just the points that the story needs to hit and what I want the ending to be. If you're too rigid with your story, it'll read like a textbook instead of a novel (I mean... unless you're going for the textbook, then you do you).

But then, I'm more of a "pantser" as NaNoWriMo calls it.

 

[Praybird]

I think it also depends on what you consider as an outline. I have an archive of settings, characters, and ideas that have nothing to do with the current story; I've no clue if I'll ever use them, and I definitely won't use all of them, but they're still there. It's like having a mountain of materials when all I'm building is a small table.

This is my own way of having an 'outline', and I enjoy building on this archive, regardless of whether I use what's in it or not. Others might say it's haphazard and confusing, and that's fine. What matters most is that this works for me, and I'm writing this story.

Personally, I don't think anyone should be telling you what an outline is, or how much outline you should have, or how accurate your outline should be. Whatever you've decided to go with is undoubtedly gonna be the best outline for you. It's not like the FBI's gonna confiscate your story for not properly following the international outline guidelines, right?

 

[RepresentingCaution]

That's a personal preference. Do what feels right to you.