I’ve never really done outlining of any sort before. Originally it was because when I tried to do it I lost all interest in the story and stopped. Now, I don’t outline because I’m afraid of it. A lot of my ideas never come into my head in their full form. I have an idea for something, start it up, and go with it.
Lately I’ve been having problems though and am trying to do the whole outline thing, at least to the extent that I know the general direction of the story. But outlining is not nearly as easy as I thought. Basically this is what is going on:
A long while ago I started a strange SF horror story called “The White”. The title is only temporary, in fact I’m thinking of the changing it to “The Lies of Venicia”, since that has more to do with what is going on anyway. Well, I put the story aside, unfinished, a long time ago for some reason or another and just came back to it and realized how much I really liked the idea (a human colony in another star system that has been turned into a backwater because of the violent reaction of a mysterious alien entity known as the White). So I sat down and tried to think of what i could do with ti. I didn’t want to write another novel from the perspective of one person. Part of this is because I think in the case of this story one POV would really make all the horror and psychological issues feel old. I didn’t want that. So I added a second POV taken from someone in a place that, more or less, is not really involved in the second plotline, not directly at least. Same planet, different city. Things were going okay, rather swiftly. Then suddenly, I wanted another POV. It popped into my head that I have two people from opposite spectrums living on the same planet, but I didn’t have someone from the other spectrum–off planet.
But I have a dilemma here. Outlining is proving…difficult. I’m not sure where to go with the story and when I write something down, I realize, I don’t like the way that is going and just write something else other than what the outline intended.
So, what do you guys do when it comes to outlining? I want to hear your thoughts!
Share this:
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)