Outlining (or not)

I am not the sort of person who typically uses outlines to help myself write fiction. They help me when I am sorting through research, writing speeches, essays, and articles, but when I want to tell a story that comes purely from my imagination an outline does not help me.

When I was a child, I used to write stories and plays with my sisters. We would act out these plays for family members, or turn them into radio drama's by recording them on cassette tape. It was fun! I did not think of these things as hard or scary. I just wrote down what I wanted to write down and did not worry about my story. It was a carefree past time and I actually completed plenty of stories. I won't say that they were all good (they were not), still they were for the most part complete. I got my characters to the end of the story.

When I got older, wiser, and more educated, I learned about outlines. I learned that outlines were, supposed to help me develop a story, organize it and write it down. I decided to give it a try, and sure enough it really helped with my school assignments. I could write speeches, lesson plans, essays, articles, legal briefs etc. without a problem.

So I decided to try it out on the novel that I was starting to write, and it did not work. I ceased to write. I spin stories inside my mind all the time, but none of them come out of me. I know where I want to go with the story, I know the gist of the plot, the main events, and so I write out an outline for myself and it takes me no where. It seems to me that I have not completed a single story since I was seventeen years old, and I believe it is because I have forced myself to use a system that is obviously not working for me. Well you know the saying, if ain't broke don't fix it? What about returning to my little self? They artistic child who had fun with her stories. That might work, and it is worth a shot.

These are all revelations that came to me recently as I've been working on my novel. I'm still not against outlining. I think it works for many people, and it might even work for me if I tweaked it a bit.

I read a book called Writing Fiction for Children: Stories Only You Can Tell. In it Judy Morris, the author, has a lot of information on forming and organizing your story.

Since reading her book, I've started asking myself questions about my story, to help me write it down and (hopefully) not leave out the important stuff.

What is my story about?

What does my story center around?

 Who drives the action forward?


What needs to happen in this chapter to get my mc to the next big event in the story?

How are my characters changing? How are they staying the same?

What is important to them? How am I getting this across to my reader?

These are just some of the questions I ask.  It is not a true outline and allows me to feel the freedom of exploring my story while writing it, instead of feeling boxed in and unable to write what I want. I hope that they will help me to finish my novel.