Why I Outline My Novels (And What Happened When I Didn’t) | Ep 1

Outlining is a fundamental part of my writing process, and today I’m sharing why. Over the past 12 (probably more…) years, I’ve struggled to find a writing process that works for me, and now I finally feel like I’m honing in on what’s working for me. Outlining is not for everyone, but if you’re considering outlining for your first or next story, I’m sharing all of the reasons I have been loving it.

This is the first episode in not only the podcast but also a series where I’m taking you along for the ride and sharing my entire writing and editing process (mistakes and all). It’s going to get wild.

I hope you’ll stick around and join the journey. Whether you’re working on your first story or are a novel-writing veteran, I’d love to learn about your process and story. I’m hopeful we can support each other on this journey.

[00:00:00] Jennifer Flodin: Welcome to The Shape of Story podcast. I’m Jennifer, a writer and developmental editor, and I’m here to share my writing process as I work on the first book that I intend to publish. And I’m going to be sharing the lessons that I’m learning along the way and the insights that we can borrow from bestselling books and fellow writers.

[00:00:24] Grab your favorite hot beverage and let’s dive in to today’s episode.

[00:00:31] Welcome to the podcast. I am so excited because this is the first episode in this series and in this podcast, so I am thrilled to be here. If you have not taken a moment to listen to the podcast trailer, I highly recommend that because that’s going to give you a bunch of context as to why I am doing this podcast in the first place.

[00:01:03] In this first series that I’m doing on the podcast. Is going to be all about my process in planning and writing a full length novel, and I am doing this because this is the kind of content that I would have absolutely loved 12, 13 years ago. And yes, it has taken me this long to get to this point where I feel comfortable sharing this.

[00:01:36] And that’s partly because it took me a long time to understand storytelling and what makes a good story. So I’ve started a lot of books, a lot of stories, and have finished very few and. A lot of that was because I lacked the knowledge of what actually makes a story good,

[00:02:02] and it’s easy enough to read , but it’s difficult to understand. What about the story. Is working. So I want to share this because in sharing my process. I’m really hoping that you are going to gain some insights into things that perhaps you could do for your own process, perhaps some tweaks to where you can make things smoother.

[00:02:30] But of course, I’m just sharing my process with you, you can do whatever you want. Writing is an artistic endeavor, and writing is really the medium through which we’re telling a story.

[00:02:43] And storytelling in and of itself is an artistic endeavor as well. So artistic endeavors on two fronts, but. And because of that, you get to do what you want to do. It is a process and it is for you. The goal is to find what works for you and when you’re looking for what works for you, you want to make sure that you’re actually adopting things that will help you achieve your goal, which would be finishing a book.

[00:03:10] I do just wanna share a stat real quick because I think it is very relevant.

[00:03:15] I am looking it up real quick because I don’t remember it off the top of my head, but I’ve heard it before and I wanna make sure I get the number right.

[00:03:22] Okay, so there’s not really a definitive number, but there are a few estimates. So some sources claim that only about 3% of those who begin writing a novel ever finish a draft. Another often quoted number is that less than 1% of people who want to write a book actually finish and publish one.

[00:03:47] Those are wild numbers,

[00:03:50] and of course it’s a little bit difficult to tell. These have to be self-reported. All of that. So it’s not going to be entirely accurate, I don’t think, but it’s a daunting number, but it could be wonderfully motivating for you. So just consider if you have never finished a draft before, then consider what it would be like to do something that most people.

[00:04:20] Never do. Not only is it something that most people never do, but it’s something that you want to do, and for one reason or another, it is going to fulfill some sort of internal need for you. I know for me, it has been a dream of mine to publish a book, a fiction book in particular. And it’s just not something I have ever done.

[00:04:47] I have never written a story with the intent of publishing it. And that changes now because in this series, that is my goal. The goal for the story that I’m going to be writing alongside you is one that I intend to publish

[00:05:06] now, if you are somebody who has already finished a draft of a full length novel, congratulations because you have done what very few people have done, and if you’re working on a new draft for a new story. And you’re joining me because you think it might be interesting to kind of see what I am doing and see how you might be able to take some ideas to make your process better, easier, smoother, then that’s awesome and welcome.

[00:05:37] But even if you’ve never finished a draft before, and this is going to be your first one, I’m very excited to have you joining me in this endeavor. I think that it’s going to be wonderful. I really hope that you find this series valuable.

[00:05:50] Like I said at the beginning, this is information that I wish that I had 12, 13 years ago, and that’s because I just had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And there’s also just sort of comradery that’s created when you see somebody else doing what you’re also doing and you’re almost doing it together.

[00:06:11] You know you’re doing it at the same time. And. It makes you feel a little bit less alone and it can be really easy to feel alone when you’re writing a book because the majority of your friends and family probably don’t really get it. They might support you.

[00:06:29] They do. That’s wonderful. They may not, and it can feel really lonely. ’cause even if they support you, they may not necessarily understand why you’re doing it. And that’s, that can be difficult, but you know why you’re doing it, and that is all that matters. So without further ado, we are going to get into today’s episode.

[00:06:50] Wow, what a long introduction. Let me pull up my outline real quick so that we’ve got everything we need.

[00:06:58] So in today’s episode, I’m going to be sharing why I choose to outline my novels. I know some writers really thrive through discovery writing. Um, I’ve tried that. It did not work for me. And in this episode, I’m gonna walk you through why I personally choose to outline what it gives me as a writer and some of the pitfalls I ran into when I did not outline.

[00:07:23] By the end of the episode, you may have a clearer idea on whether or not you should outline for your next story.

[00:07:30] So for me, outlining really helps me explore various potential directions for the story in a very quick and succinct manner. If I get a story idea and I just start writing it is very likely I’m going to write myself into a dead end. It is very likely that the middle of the story is going to lack conflict, lack tension, and overall be uninteresting.

[00:08:02] I have done. That before many, many times. In fact, this is pretty much exclusively how I wrote for, oh gosh, like 10 years or maybe eight years. Something really long, something that felt long, and it just didn’t matter what I did. The outcome never really changed. So I would start a story. And I’d be like, Ugh, this story idea is just so good.

[00:08:31] I cannot wait to get started. I have like a few scenes in my head that I really want to write and I start writing. I would always start at the beginning and I would just work my way through. I could maybe get 10,000 words in maybe more.
[00:08:48] Before I started realizing that the story was going nowhere, and I could not, for the life of me understand why I could not write a story like the ones that I loved reading. It was frustrating and discouraging.

[00:09:08] I dipped my toes into the outlining waters, but I just, I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no idea what I was doing. I did not have any sort of process that I was following. I was just writing down scenes and that was not helpful for me either.

[00:09:23] So bringing it back around, I kind of just word vomited all of my frustrations with pantsing. But going back to my first point is that. Outlining helps me explore various potential directions. So before I would write 10,000 words and I would come to a point where I was like, this isn’t working. And then I would have to go back, consider different choices that the protagonist might make consider different things that could happen to the protagonist, to force them into different situations, to cause ’em to react, force them into different situations and.

[00:10:02] That was a lot of work. It was a lot of work, and I could never get past, 10,000 words, 15,000 words, 20,000 words, like I just couldn’t get past it. And I would usually abandon the draft because, I mean, fixing all that is like rewriting the entire thing. Like, I just wrote 10,000 words. None of them are any good and I can’t move forward without fixing them.

[00:10:25] So it felt very frustrating. Now when I outline, I can look into the future, see how the story is going to look based on certain parameters that I set, and I can decide if that is in fact the direction that I want to go in. And that has been transformational for my writing process. It has made writing itself way easier.

[00:10:49] Now, there are a few drawbacks like. It’s less of a surprise. I already kind of know how the story is going to end, and so continuing to write a story that feels like it’s already been told can be a little bit difficult and it requires quite the motivation. However, if I do not do it, there will be no real story.

[00:11:12] It will just be a series of. Events and it’s does not builds to anything and there’s no satisfying payoff at the end. So I make sure that I outline.

[00:11:23] The next reason I outline, and I think I accidentally touched on this in the last one, but the next reason I outline is that it gives me direction when I’m writing. Which really helps me avoid a middle that is riddled with boring scenes that lead to nowhere. It is so easy to just write and make decisions as you’re writing only to realize that all of those decisions and all of those scenes have led the story.

[00:11:52] To no man’s land. This is where stories go to die, right? If nothing’s happening, nothing’s building, the tension’s not building, the stakes aren’t being raised, the conflict is not intensifying. Then do you have a story or do you just have a series of events? And I would argue that you just have a series of events and it’s nothing personal because.

[00:12:16] Trust me. I have written many quote unquote stories that are essentially just a series of events, and they’re not even a series of very interesting events. They’re just events. They’re things that are happening to the protagonist. The protagonist had absolutely nothing to do with any of them, and the protagonist could have literally been anybody.

[00:12:36] It does not matter. It did not matter. I digress. I am not passionate about this at all. I don’t know if you could tell

[00:12:45] one of the complaints I hear about outlining is that it can feel very restrictive, and it’s true. Outlining can absolutely feel restrictive if you’re not careful. I have found that if I frame my outline like a guide, knowing that I can veer off the path that I have previously set for myself when it feels right, outlining feels more supportive than restrictive, even though I explore many options when I’m both brainstorming and outlining.

[00:13:19] I may not have explored all of the options. I mean, let’s be realistic. It would be nearly impossible to explore all of the options. So if I’m in the middle of writing and an idea comes to me, an idea specifically that I get very excited about, especially if I sleep on it and the next day, I’m still feeling really excited about it, it’s worth considering.

[00:13:44] How that change would impact the rest of the story, impact what I’ve already written. So just in case I need to go back and make any changes, how it would impact the theme, how it might impact my character arcs, or the main plot or the romantic subplot or anything within the story, how it might impact those things, and then make an informed decision based on that.

[00:14:10] Because if I like the new direction that it’s going with the new idea, I at least know all of the things that it’s going to change and it’s going to impact. And because of that, I can adjust my outline. I can make the change and adjust my outline. So it’s not that it prevents me, I don’t allow the outline to prevent me from making a change.

[00:14:34] But I do allow the outline to help me see into the future and see what the story will be if I do decide to make that change. And that’s so helpful when I’m making a decision, ’cause I’m feeling like I’m making an informed decision based on what is going to logically have to happen and not the emotional decision of the excitement that I might feel from the idea.

[00:14:57] And so it just shifts it and it changes it, and it doesn’t negate the excitement that I feel for the idea. It doesn’t mean that the excitement’s less meaningful or that the excitement is somehow bad, or I needed to be avoided. Not at all that the excitement is a good indication that it might be a good idea, and it gets me to explore it in more depth before taking the plunge.

[00:15:25] Because ultimately it’s not that I want my first draft to be perfect by any means, but if I can minimize the number of major structural changes I will have to make, that sounds like a win to me. Now, I don’t say that. Thinking that I’m going to avoid most major structural changes. I don’t say that thinking that I’m a hundred percent going to avoid any major structural changes.

[00:15:53] I may not. I might write this first draft because the final story, it never looks anything like the first draft, right? So I might very well write this first draft, come to the end of it, and realize I have made a glaring error. And that’s okay. There is nothing wrong with that. The important thing is finishing the draft, and I find that outlining helps me finish the draft.

[00:16:18] It ultimately helps me make a decision when I have a new idea that comes up so that I can make a decision and continue with the draft regardless of what that decision is. But I will not get stuck and paralyzed in the indecision. So I hope that that makes sense. Well, there you have it. That is the episode.

[00:16:39] That’s why I love outlining. You may or may not love it. Everyone is different, but if you’re interested in outlining and you’re looking to learn more about it, to either start outlining or maybe refine your outlining process that’s already in place, then I would. Be so honored for you to stick around

[00:17:00] ‘ cause in the next few episodes in this series, I’m going to be sharing the process that I am using for this current draft. This is very different from some of my outlining processes that I’ve done previously, and I am loving it so far. So I’m very interested to see exactly how it moves into actually writing, but I’m very excited to be sharing it with you,

[00:17:26] and I hope that even if you can just find one piece of your process to improve that listening to these episodes will have been worth your time.

[00:17:37] And if you’re in a position where you have maybe recently started writing your story, started outlining, or you have a story idea and you are getting ready to start, then I would. Again, just be honored If you wanted to follow along and outline, share, maybe try some of the things that I’ve tried. Share your feedback on what’s working for you, what’s not working for you.

[00:18:04] Even if not, just writing along side me in real time, like that would be so cool.

[00:18:10] Even if you don’t care to try anything that I’m sharing about my process and you just want a writing buddy, then please join along because I would love to hear about your process and I would love to hear about your progress.

[00:18:26] Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks so much for listening. See you in the next episode.

[00:18:32] Thanks for listening to The Shape of Story podcast. Writing does not have to be a solitary journey. We are in this together, and if today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love it if you subscribed and shared it with another writer who might need it. And as always, if you want more content like this, then be sure to subscribe to my newsletter.

[00:18:56] The link is in the show notes. Until next time, happy writing.