Writing Without a Net – Outlines Don’t Suck

I am reading a book – listening to it, really – titled “A Quiet Belief in Angels,” by R. J. Ellory, and I have a theory.  First off, I think this is a very talented author.  There are segments of this book that represent some of the finest writing I’ve encountered in  a while.  Overall however, the book feels disjointed, and that’s what I want to talk about in today’s short post.

I don’t believe that this book was written with an outline – or – if it was, I don’t believe the outline was very complete.  There are several reasons, but here’s the one that hit me between the eyes.  I was listening to a particular segment of the book and I got the distinct impression that the author all of a sudden decided that something happened and just wrote it.  I’m aware that this happens all the time, and that epiphany is part of communicating with the muse, but the things you write into a novel have to fit.  They have to jive with the rest of the action and dialogue, and if they end up just in there for no particular purpose, then they need to be cut out.

There is also a sense that the authors knows he needs to convey certain facts to his protagonist, and thus to the reader, but that careful thought did not go into the manner of transference.  What happens, then, is that you get segments of action that seem absolutely pointless and out of character, except that they end the protagonist up in a place he wouldn’t otherwise have been just so he can get some important information.

These are the kinds of things that I used to face in my novels pre-2004 – my first year participating in Nanowrimo.  They cost me endless hours of revision – I’m sad to say they did not cost Mister Ellory the same amount of time, because he left them in place, and they are jarring moments that knock the reader (this reader at least) out of the story.

I always outline my novels now, and though I seldom manage to follow my outline from start to finish and often diverge from the path, I have a sense of flow and action that I did not have when I was winging it…I have a safety net.

I hear over and over that people just write in the moment, that they want to “see where the tale takes them” – but I have gone back and looked at some of this, and I’ve noticed something. Most of the people telling me this have not yet found much success in writing professionally.  Most of the professionals I know go in with at least a rudimentary outline – and I now know how I must have looked, standing on the other side of that creative line in the sand and insisting I didn’t need the structure.

I believe you have to know where you are going, and the important points of getting there, before you get too far into a novel.  Otherwise, you end up rambling off in unnecessary directions, winding knots in plots and failing to fully unravel them, and driving your readers crazy.  The protagonist might not know how the book ends, but you had better have a good idea.  Both the reader AND the protagonist are counting  on you.

At some point in the future I’ll review “A Quiet Belief in Angels.”  I haven’t finished it yet, and I AM still intrigued.  I just think it could have either been plotted more carefully or smoothed out after the fact.  Long tedious segments tying together sections of beautiful writing constitutes no more than a ghost of what the work could be with careful planning.

-DNW