In Defence of Outlines

In his book On Writing, Stephen King discusses his method for discovering the story as he writes it and why he is not a fan of outlining his books. King suggests that he can tell when a book came naturally to a writer versus being an outlined work. I admit I cannot pick up on this quality in the books I read, but then I am not the master that is Stephen King (though sometimes I wonder if I might be able to pick up on a King novel’s finale that clearly was not planned ahead of time). I respect King and read On Writing at an important time in my writing journey, so I took its lessons to heart. And while I still think highly of the book and return to it more often than any other book on writing fiction, I have distanced myself from the master’s stance on outlines.

Stephen King is a master storyteller that has honed his skills over decades of refining his craft. Even before he became America’s most popular literary mind of a generation, one could argue that he simply had a heightened understanding on what was required and desired from a novel to make it a good piece of fiction. We’re not all at that level. Maybe we’ll get there someday, maybe not. Even other master storytellers look on in awe at the constant output that King cranks out from year to year.

Point is, we’re not there yet. You’re allowed to use crutches, friends. And shit, I encourage you not to view them as crutches. Not only are you probably not at King’s level in your craft, you’re also probably not at his comfort level in terms of having your fiction pay for your house. King suggests writing every day and finishing your draft in no more than three months. Some of us don’t have that kind of time. Writing every day and speeding right along on a three month schedule keeps the story in mind so that we are never without it, thus hopefully spiriting more inspiration our way every day. But if we don’t have that every day availability, then that model for writing loses some of its stability, and we might lose the plot.

I outline my books now. Sometimes they’re as detailed as you can imagine, but often times they’re pretty sparse on descriptions beyond ‘first the monster shows up, next this dude gets his head chopped off.’ I don’t force or rush into writing outlines. That, in my experience, is the path to frustration. Instead, I let the story cook for a few weeks in my brain until I feel like it’s a movie I watched months ago and I’m trying to put the pieces together about how the story went. Then, inspired and with a complete vision of how the story is supposed to go, I commit that thing to paper from beginning to end. All at once. It’s like you’re writing a witness report of the dream that you’ve had playing in your head.

From there, I start writing the story. Usually I know what comes next without needing to reexamine the outline. But if I need to, then I refer to the outline, and it acts as a reminder for the dream I once envisioned but had started to forget.

And sometimes (often times?), the story departs from the outline. Instinctually you should be able to know if this is for the best or not. This is intuition taking you somewhere new. If it’s good for the story, then say to hell with what the outline said and go with it. But sometimes it’s bad for the story and your instincts should kick in to tell you that you’ve taken the wrong road.

Here’s another reason why I’ve changed my stance on the outline: it saves you time on the rewrite. King said that “To write is human, to edit is divine,” and… I get it. The gold is discovered in the rewrites. But it’s also crazy talk. Editing, in my experience, is hell. If you can reduce the stress of the rewrite stage by having a somewhat cleaner first draft because you outlined it before writing, then maybe it is worth considering an outline.

Ultimately though, the choice to be an outliner or a panster is up to your personal preference. Neither King’s advice against outlines and my defence of outlines are one size fits all tips for how to write your story. You gotta figure out what you’re comfortable with and what you think results in your best writing. I would simply advise you to try both methods and see what works best for you.