How I Write or Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Fiction Writing Outline - Puzzle Process

Ideas for scenes with my characters filter forward in my brain with little connection to where the writing currently stands. The image comes of the date, the young couple in the dark on the abandoned playground of the girl's childhood. With only that and the knowledge of their enemies I write a scene.

Where does this scene fit in an outline? The first time out it fits where ever it might be in the What's Written So Far. You're probably thinking to yourself, that's not how an outline works. You are correct!

Consider BB3 (Begotten Bloods Novel 3) which now has upwards of 28,000 words. I've written quite a bit, but not all of it is connected. Heck, it's not even chronological! At some point in writing the story I become lost. I lose sight of what has already happened, what's going to happen, and how it relates to what went before or what ending we're headed toward.  The whole project becomes too blurry to proceed.

That's when I write the outline.

In writing communities you are sometimes asked if you are a planner or a pantser. Do you work from an outline with  most of your story in mind before you write? Then you are a planner--just like my husband who now has five complete outlines--chapter by chapter for a historical fiction series. When he sits down to write, the words usually fly out because he's already put so much into the plan.

I'm a pantser--flying by the seat of my pants. Dreaming and writing, shaping scenes, creating dialogue. I might have 20 or 30 thousand words down before I construct an "outline." Until I lose my way--lose my free flowing inspiration due to how-does-this-fit questions--there is not outline. It's a fictional writing outline. :-)

When the time comes, I go back to the beginning and make a list of all the scenes I have so far. I may or may not put them in chronological order. With the list, I can kick-start my imagination by asking the same question as before--slightly altered. It's not "what happens next" so much as "what happened between here and there".  Then I'll insert the new scenes in the main writing file, or note ideas for scenes onto the hard copy of the outline. Or simply put a big question mark between or beside scenes--no idea (yet) how it fits together.

This probably sounds fairly unwieldy in terms of handling a story. It is. Eventually this process of writing will tie my plot up in knots, and I'll have to print/order a hard copy and actually tear scenes apart and physically lay them out, stack them in piles, order the content and write in multiple middles. What I don't want you to think, though, is that this is all a waste of time. I am a very visual person, a visual learner, and physically working through my content this way is an important part of my process. I write pieces of a puzzle and work out how to fit them together after--figure what new pieces I need.

The writing process may be similar for a lot of planners; they use similar tools to work through their content and story. Then there are writers like me who need to create, rip apart, connect together, and rewrite when only half the book is finished. Both are legitimate ways of working.

Continuing to work, to move forward, to write--that's what matters. Especially on the first draft. Can't remember a minor character's name? Leave a double question mark and keep writing. Need a bit of research on the wood types used to make knitting needles? Write RESEARCH and keep working on the scene. Making notes like these and skipping details keeps me moving forward when it would be very easy to get lost on the internet doing research, or get caught up in a different scene or edits because I went back to find a name. Forward motion. Strive for the finish.

Best advice for process? Write on! And finish something.