World-building, outlining, plotting & breakthroughs!
I have tried to write from a detailed outline in the past–and have failed miserably. I have done extensive world-building, and created a detailed outline, and have fallen flat. I never finished those books.
Current book: I researched for about one month. I assembled the world, created the main characters, religions, government, and created a loose outline.
Almost from the beginning I realized my outline would be close to useless. I started off with the intention of following it, only to find out I’m pretty much a discovery writer. Oh, I have a pretty good idea of where things need to go for the book to work, but sometimes the characters end up changing what I had planned. It’s exciting when that happens, it feels more natural to me. Following a strict outline feels too confining and artificial.
Plotting and breakthroughs: The characters and the problems they are facing constantly float around in my mind all day while I’m at work. I rarely have a breakthrough moment at work though, as there are too many other things happening. My breakthroughs are either at the keyboard when a character does something I was not expecting, or while I’m working out.
While working out is hard for multiple reasons. If I’m out on a jog (I’m usually running pretty hard, so recording my ideas would be tough) and I have a great idea of how to resolve issues in the story it’s a great feeling. My problem is not that I won’t remember, but I want to turn around right then and go home to write it. Plus, once I am done with the jog, I have to cooldown, take a shower, eat, and by then I feel too out of it. The spark is gone. After a couple of hours I feel like I can get into some productive writing, but I do feel like I’ve zapped myself. It’s tricky because if I didn’t go for these runs I may not have these amazing breakthroughs. I guess I just have to deal with it. Working out is important and it is providing me with answers to problems in my story.
If only sitting around eating cookies and ice cream provided me with those amazing breakthroughs!
Alistair