Outlines for People who Prefer to Shoot from the Hip

I have always admired organized people.  These are the people who always know where their car keys are, who can manage to fold and put away their laundry, and whose desks aren’t stacks of papers and disorderly sticky notes.  Amazing.  I applaud you (from behind my piles of sticky notes and index cards).

My disorganization doesn’t just stop in the physical world of my cluttered desk or the pile of folded but not distributed laundry that I call “Mount Clothes”.  It permeates my writing too.  I sometimes wonder if I am mentally hard-wired to be disorganized. I once read an article that talked about the mental disorganization of ambidextrous people–it claimed that because the brain was constantly cross-referencing activities across both hemispheres of the brain, people who never developed a dominant side stored information inefficiently.  I can certainly relate.  I throw a baseball righty, a discus and frisbee left, a javelin and shot-put both.  I eat with my left, write with my right (until that hand gets tired, then I switch),  lay-up left, high jump/long jump/triple jump left, snowboard goofy, and haven’t yet decided if I bowl right or left-handed.  I am decidedly right-eyed when I am on the range, but can get by just fine firing a pistol lefty.  I just might be hard-wired to be disorganized and I am beginning to accept that and just move on.

While I despise the fact that I lean heavily toward a natural disorganized state, my disorganized approach to writing one of my favorite aspects of my style because it seems to drive some of the best aspects of my work.  I know that sounds crazy, but here’s how I go about my work in both a world where I can’t seem to figure out left from right and have a tendency to prefer to shoot from the hip rather than to organize my approach to large projects.

Story Arc.  I always start my conceptual outlining with a story arc, and I usually can get through a basic story arc without too much trouble.  If I can’t get through my story arc outline, I know that I have some more mental preparation to do before I can put the pen to paper.  In my story arc, I’m aiming to define the beginning, middle, and end of my storyline.  It’s a simple process– I draw three boxes on a blank piece of paper, two small and one large.  In the small boxes, I write the parameters for a successful beginning and end of a story.  In the large box, I fill in two types of information: (1) all of the events that must take place and, (2) the themes that must be communicated.  I don’t bother to connect these two at this stage, but I identify them and then let the (disorganized) journey of writing draw the two together.

Chapter Outlines. Once my story arc is completed, I will outline the chapters in approximate chronological order.  I start with the same process– drawing boxes on a blank piece of paper.  I never outline the whole story arc– just start with one section at a time.  When I outline the first box of my story arc by chapter, I consider how I will achieve the benchmark events that are required for the beginning of my story to be successful.  I keep an eye out for how I will develop the themes that I identified I have to communicate.  The chapter outline boxes contain a basic storyline for each chapter and will highlight areas that need further research.  I start to write when I’m ready– usually when I have at least a few chapters to work with.  Sounds foolproof, right?

So, here’s the thing. Sometimes sparks come to us as we write. As I mentioned above, the disorganized nature of my writing is actually one of my strong points.  If I outline too much, I lose that piece of my writing that is unexpected– that is genuine.    Until I am in the thick of writing, I cannot foresee how my story will evolve.  All the humor, the surprise, the fun comes in those sparks that I would never foresee just by the outlining process.  I’m just not wired that way.  That’s why I have this lovely little concept called the Chapter Sparks.

Chapter Sparks.  These are the chapters that you didn’t know you needed until you started writing.  These little gems are also why I only outline a few chapters ahead at a time.  Because sometimes these little devils can derail a lot of the work that organized people would have done ahead of time.  Thankfully, I’m not one of those people.  Because I would end up by doing a lot of extra work.

As I write and as I try to meet my benchmark events and themes, sometimes the good idea fairy visits.  And this could be in the form of a small detail that needs to be hashed out in an earlier chapter or it could be more influential in the overall storyline.  Sometimes an event or reflection that would help to draw out the intended themes flashes onto the paper when least expected, and causes me to have to go back and insert a Chapter Spark.  This might mean altering a previous chapter or inserting an entirely new chapter.  These are my favorite chapters to write (or… rewrite).  When that happens, I add an asterisk to my pen and paper outline in the chapter box, and draw a whole new box to prep this new spark.

Pulse Checks.  Pulse checks are designed to make sure that people who would prefer to shoot from the hip are keeping between the left and right boundaries of what they set out to do.  I think of them as bumpers on a bowling lane.  The same way that I need bumpers in bowling (as you may recall I still haven’t figured out if I bowl left or right), I need bumpers in writing.  This is why I make myself do a pulse check every once in a while.  In a pulse check, I make sure I am still on course.  Are my themes being addressed, are major events being addressed, are my characters growing?  If not, I do some fixer-upper work.  And then I keep moving.  Because, as I noted in a previous blog, First Drafts are for Scribbles.  No need for perfection at this stage.

Organized people would probably read this and be horribly disappointed, but this particular blog wasn’t meant for people who have their shit together.  It was meant to give some hope to those who aren’t organized.  Disorganization in writing can be harnessed for the good (the sparks) but it can also leave great ideas and great writing unfinished.  Hopefully, for those who have had trouble reining in their writing, these tips will help provide some left and right bumpers to allow for some writing successes.

Until next time, keep scribbling.