It’s Not an Outline

I have always been proud and mystified and grateful to be a writer, to have stories unfold and characters develop, simply (or not so simply) through the act of putting words on paper. Not planning, not knowing anything about what is going to happen, just writing. It’s magic.

As I work on my third novel, a sequel to A Better Life, I find myself looking ahead more and more at what may, could, or might happen, and I write into that, through it, picking up details along the way.. Because I know two of the characters so well, Jenny and Margaret, I do have a sense of how they will act or react (not that they don’t continue to surprise me) and ideas of what might happen. I write future scenes and conversations that come to me seemingly out of the blue and even wrote out a possible ending, all the while insisting it’s not an outline.

A lot of writers outline their stories before they write the first sentence. I don’t know enough (if anything) in the beginning to do such a thing, and I don’t have the patience for it. Once I have an idea or a character or an image, I am anxious to start writing. For me, following an outline would take away some of the magic, the joy of discovery. I may write down what the next chapter or end may bring, but it’s not an outline. It’s simply a possible or maybe even likely road to go down.

Is it an outline if I envision what may happen in the future and write it down? If I write out what could happen next, and after that, leading to this? I don’t think so, because I make sure to use those magical words: may and might and could. They don’t tie me down, don’t hold me to anything, but help get the story moving.