Outlines are your friend!
Almost all of the writers I know refuse to use outlines. They love to think something up and then just hit the keyboard. I confess, I used to be exactly same when when I was strictly a novelist – back in the dark ages. And then a funny thing happened... I shifted my focus to television and film writing and suddenly, structure was happening all over the place! I suddenly had a lot more to deal with than just beginning/middle/end. What was a novelist to do?
An interesting thing happened on the way to becoming a screenwriter... I learned to outline. If you read a lot of books on screenwriting, they'll almost all tell you to outline. Not just outline, but also to use something called a “beat sheet” which tells the writer exactly what was supposed to happen at the inciting incident, every act and every turning point.
And then an even more interesting thing happened... the writing flowed a hell of a lot faster than it ever had no matter what I was writing, novel, tv spec, or feature film. There's a reason why buildings have blueprints and webpages have coding protocols: everything needs a starting point and details make up the greater whole of whatever you're putting together.
“But doesn't this stifle your creativity?!”
“Isn't it like writing the novel twice?”
I hear that a lot but the opposite is true for me. I don't just outline plot, but characters, too. Now before you draw back in horror at that little revelation, let me tell you a secret: if you know where you're going and who your traveling companions are, the trip goes by very quickly. And just because you outline doesn't mean that new ideas don't spring up and you can't pursue them. Happens to me all the time. The outline lets me see problems ahead of writing out the entirety of my 95k word opus and knowing your characters' background down down through childhood lets you dig in deep to their psyche.
Here's a sample:
Chapter 1 – After getting fired and dumped on the same day, Mary gets beamed up to an alien ship. J'Nir, the captain, says that he needs her help to stop a coup on his home planet; she's actually the heir to the throne.
Chapter 2 – J'Nir's ex-wife is also the ship's second in command and makes trouble for Mary as she tries to settle in for the long journey back to their planet.
Chapter 3 – An unknown assassin tries to kill Mary but she fights him off and escapes to safety.
So, not a lot of detail, but enough to let me know what I think the chapters will be about, where the novel/screenplay itself is going, and to see where problems might come up. Or, if I forget all about a character (and that happened on two embarrassing occasions), the outline reminds me about them before I get so far down the line that I have to rewrite major portions of the work.
I know this isn't likely to convince someone who's determined not to use an outline, but this is me saying that they are not evil. You should try it sometime. As someone who's survived the 3-Day Novel contest three times and produced two completed novels (I was sick as a dog on the second weekend and didn't finish) in the course of Labor Day weekend, I can safely say that outlines are a huge time saver in the end.
Happy writing, no matter what method you use!
Well said!
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