Write a book, darn you! Outlines and plotting in your pants.

My job in the real world is 'facility attendant' as a seniors' activity centre. There's karaoke, there's bridge, there's tai chi, table tennis, and on, and on. But covid's got stuff such down. Which leads to bored/isolated seniors. The activity co-ordinator has taken it upon herself to do these newsletters to help. She asked if I could throw something in, and knowing I write, she asked if I could put together a bit about writing for bored seniors. I whipped something out. I've done talks on it, and contributed to books about it, but I figured others might get some use out of what I wrote for the newsletter... Here we go!

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I used to write little short stories for fun, but the idea of writing a full book seemed like an insurmountable feat I would never dare to challenge. But one day, I ended up with a short story I liked enough to write 2 sequels and a prequel for. The sum of them formed the blocks to my first novel. As much as I still like that book, through my own fiddling, and talking with other writers, I've come up with a bit of a system to make it easier.

I was taught about outlines in school, but it always seemed like such a tedious waste of time. It can feel like that when your assignment is half a page, but if your goal is a hundred or more pages, it gets a lot more useful. There's writers who are 'plotters' who plan everything in detail before they get into 'actual' writing, and there's 'pansters', who fly by the seat of their pants. That describes my first book, I suppose, but now I'm somewhere in between a plotter and pantser.

Once I have my basic idea, I separate it into single line plot points- just to keep me on track. I'll use a cliche for an example-

-Dragon steals princess from castle
-King puts out a notice for a hero
-Bob sees the notice, and talks to king, gets directions
-Bob goes to fight dragon, wins, yay.

Each one of those lines could be described for pages and pages, possibly a meaty chapter.

Line one might turn into describing the town, the castle, the princess going about her daily routine, an omen as the skies turn dark, and a screech is heard. You can go onto as much detail as you feel like, and stretch thigs out. Of course, there's a risk of dragging things out too long, so making sure what you're describing remains interesting enough to support the length can be a tricky balance. This is an instance where brutally honest feedback comes in handy.

The most important thing to remember is that your outline is not a prison. Maybe you get a new idea as you're writing chapter 2, and decide Bob loses to the dragon, and ends up having to go questing for some magic weapon, or the directions were useless, or the king was in on it, getting the princess kidnapped for insurance money. Maybe it wasn't a dragon, maybe it was 5 trained apes in a dragon suit. You can easily end up with something that bears only the slightest resemblance to the original outline.

Honestly, one of the main purposes of an outline is to set markers to make the entire process of writing a book seem like less like one huge task, and more like manageable bites.

Once you've come to an ending, read it. Over and over. Being able to see your own flaws is a trained skill. When you already know what something is SUPPOSED to say, you subconsciously 'auto-correct' typos, plot holes, and awkward parts that aren't explained well. Self-editing can only go so far. When I think I have a book perfected, that's when I hand it to people I know who will be BRUTAL in finding errors, and honest, not sparing my feelings. Nothing is ever complete- I've had pro editors take a swing, and typos still get out. They say the best way to find an error is to publish, but it's up to the author and/or publisher to weed out as many as possible. Even 'the big guys' have this issue. There comes a point when you have to say 'good enough'.

But once it IS good enough? Then publishing is the next step. It can be as humble as having a single copy made for yourself, as ambitious as getting an agent and chasing the big traditional publishers, and anywhere in between. But that's a whole other topic...