BEST WRITING ADVICE (PART FIVE) : OUTLINE IT ALREADY! by Penny Hutson

If you haven’t been able to finish your book by “pantsing” or what’s often called the discovery method, for God’s sake, outline it already!

I saved this topic for last because it was the single most important element that led to the completion of my first book length manuscript. I can’t overstate that. I spent decades trying unsuccessfully without one. Now, I even outline short stories and have two published in separate anthologies and two nonfiction pieces in a third anthology (links below). That can’t be a coincidence.

For an explanation of the difference between outlining (also call plotting,) and “pantsing,” read my article “To Plot or to Pants? That is the Question.” (click link below)

https://sandinourshorts.blogspot.com/2024/07/to-pants-or-to-plot-that-is-question.html

Benefits of Outlining

Outlining has amazing benefits, especially with longer works, but first, let’s recognize that outlining is also writing. It’s simply the writer telling the story only without the scene-by-scene details or specific conversations that make up each chapter. You’re still writing and creating sentences and paragraphs. Give up that it’s hard work, no fun, or limits your creativity. In fact, it can be more fun and freeing to outline because you know you’re only writing a short number of pages. It’s a lot easier to throw out or revise ten or twenty pages than 200 or more. It’s also easier to see major flaws in shorter pieces.

Many successful writers who’ve published books with and without outlines, profess that outlining dramatically reduced their amount of revision. Plus, if you know what’s going into each chapter ahead of time, you don’t have to write everything in order. You can write that juicy romance scene right now, if you’ve got ideas bubbling up for that.  

Once you have a viable story or the major points of each chapter written out in complete sentences (versus a general idea in your head), you can either start writing the book or add to the outline.

Ways to Expand Your Outline

After the initial five-to-ten-page outline of the entire book, some writers will then create a short (2-4 sentence) summary of each chapter with a list of its characters and the chapter’s purpose. Others go even further with one or two sentences about each scene or section within each chapter and it’s purpose. This may seem like a lot of extra or unnecessary work, but I promise it will pay off. It’s much easier to see any flaws in your storyline or book’s overall premise, but most writers admit it’s easier to create a scene or chapter when they know what’s supposed to happen or be discussed ahead of time.

Picking an Outlining Method

I used the Snowflake Outline Method and really liked it, but many other are available in books or online. Pick one and stick with it. Don’t fall into the trap of starting a new method every time you get stuck or think it’s not working for you. Keep going. If you haven’t completed a book without an outline, consider that any outline is better than none. There’s no one right method or only one that works for you. And, you can always try another method with the next book.

I hope you enjoyed the fifth and final installment in my Best Writing Advice series. If you have any comments, questions, or writing advice of your own, I’d love to hear from you.

My next blog (topic to be determined) will post here on “Sand in Our Shorts” March 28. See you then!

Penny Hutson also has two short mystery stories available in the following anthologies:

Costal Crimes 2 : Death Takes A Vacation 

Also available on Amazon and from Wildside Press 

Click here 

A Right Cozy Historical Crime (A Right Cozy Crime Series)

Available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback

Click here

 

HEADIN’ DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE – WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAPE By Michael Rigg

Lagerstroemia indica 
a/k/a crape myrtle

Even though fiction is all about using your imagination and making stuff up, writers still have to be accurate. Next time you write a novel or short story, have your protagonist hesitate long enough to release the safety on her Glock before shooting. You’ll hear about it from your readers. Believe you me, you’ll hear about it.

So, unless you’re already a subject-matter expert, in-depth research is an absolute must. This is true for even relatively unimportant and mundane details. But, be careful. Once you start down the research path on a particular issue, you might find yourself mired in “find-the-facts quicksand,” struggling to get back to writing.

My current work in progress, Shadows of Frenchmen, is set in New Orleans. One of the characters receives a text message asking her to come to a meeting at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). Here’s part of the lead-in to the meeting:

She inhaled deeply, then let her breath out slowly as she crossed the street, entered the museum grounds, and traveled along the sidewalk adjacent to Lelong Drive. Ahead stood the museum’s massive, fortress-like main building. In season, crepe myrtles lining each side of the drive showcased a beautiful, yet eerie, combination of green leaves, magenta blossoms, and silvery-gray Spanish moss dangling from the branches. On a chilly midwinter afternoon, the trees seemed bland, uninviting. And under the circumstances, foreboding. 

Nothing particularly worrisome. I’d visited NOMA. I rode the streetcar, exited at the end of the line near Bayou St. John, sauntered down Lelong Drive, and entered the museum. I took pictures of the trees lining the drive. Like I said, in-depth research. Quicksand avoided. Back on the “write” path.

 Ha.

One of my Beta Readers sent me a text with a link to a blog, “Crepe Myrtle or Crape Myrtle? The Real Story Behind the Name.”

Say what? CRAPE myrtle? My feet now mired in the fact-check bog, sinking ever so slowly, I dove down the rabbit hole.

Turns out that most “plant experts” (you know, botanists) say the proper English name for the Lagerstroemia indica is crape myrtle. Yet, there is a substantial portion of the reasonably intelligent populace (including folks at a garden nursery in suburban New Orleans and the people running the NOMA Facebook page) who say it’s CREPE. So, after repeated volleys listing this website and that article on both sides of the issue, what to do to get back on track?

Simple. Ask the ultimate Fact-Checker-in-Chief—my spouse. The answer? It’s CRAPE.

So now comes the next step. What will the Publisher say during the final editing process? Don’t worry. I’ve done the research. I have the source material. I’m ready for whatever crape they throw at me. Or is it whatever crepe they throw at me? Oh, crap.

PROMPTS TO INSPIRE YOU, PART FOUR, by Max Jason Peterson

Greetings, fellow creatives! I’m here with another installment of prompts to inspire you! I often provide prompt sessions in person at local conventions, for local writing groups, and online for Max’s Writers Café, which are free, library-sponsored live Zoom workshops for short prose and poetry. Hampton Public Library hosts these each spring and fall, open to ages 18+ (each session requires free Eventbrite registration; see the collection here for the upcoming workshops). But as readers of this blog, you can participate on your own schedule!

My wish for you is that you would come away from these prompts with the seeds for new short works of prose or poetry (or both). The combination of the prompt + a new work you haven’t thought about previously + a time limitation really seems to help kickstart creativity. These should be thought of as creative nuggets that you may wish to polish or continue with later. They won’t be perfect! And that’s fine.

How to do this: You’ll need some form of timer. Try to be strict with yourself about this—when you are, it really seems to boost your ability to dive into the prompt and come up with something unexpected.

Set your timer for ten minutes. Read through the prompt first, then start the timer. Write for ten minutes. Then stop! See what you came up with. It might indeed be something you want to continue working on right now before you lose your train of thought. If so, I suggest treating it as a new prompt session and giving yourself ten more minutes to finish getting your thoughts down.

Today’s prompts are all mystery-oriented.

1. Write a short scene from the point of view of a household pet who is witnessing or has witnessed a crime. The pet might belong to the victim, the sleuth, or the murderer. Does the pet try to help the victim or sleuth? Or act like an accomplice to the villain?

2. What if your murderer had superpowers? What if your sleuth could use magic? From any aspect of the paranormal, supernatural, or fantasy and science fiction spectrum, pick one power for each and write a short confrontational scene in which the sleuth saves someone, but the murderer gets away—for now. The characters don't necessarily have to wield their powers—there could be a standoff here. Or what if they did wield their powers, to humorous effect?

3. If you are writing a cozy mystery, plant your sleuth in the middle of a hardboiled detective story or noir novel. If you are writing hardboiled or noir, have your detective suddenly appear in the middle of a cozy world. You can play it straight by rewriting a scene you have in mind from this opposite perspective, as if that had been the tale all along. Or it could be quite funny, in a fish-out-of-water way.

4. Think about the characters in a mystery series you enjoy. There may be some special quirk or motif that recurs in a way that delights the reader, such as when Spenser recites poetry, Holmes deduces amazing things about a stranger, or Archie Goodwin drinks a glass of milk in preference to alcohol. Now think about your work in progress. Brainstorm some interesting quirks or motifs that might help to make it unique or cause the reader delight when they recognize them.

5. Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing: This is a two-part exercise.

Part 1: 3 minutes. Make a list of things that scare you or that you find eerie, mysterious, or fascinating. Keep writing for three minutes—don't let your pen leave the page until the timer goes off.

Part 2: 10 minutes. Select one of the words on the list and just start writing about it. See what comes out!

If you’d like more prompts, here are some earlier installments in this series:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

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Max Gardner (he/they) is a fiction writer & award-winning poet published under a variety of bylines, including Max Jason Peterson and Adele Gardner. A poetry collection, Halloween Hearts, is available from Jackanapes Press, while over 500 stories, poems, art, and articles appear in Analog, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Daily Science Fiction, and more. Gardner serves as literary executor for father and mentor Delbert R. Gardner; Muse Mansion, a collection of poems by both father and firstborn, will be released soon by San Francisco Bay Press.