ivan_fisher99•1mo agoProlific Poster

Debate: Should you outline your story first or just dive in and write?

I spent two weeks outlining a dystopian novella about a librarian who fights a corrupt government with hidden books. Got 30 pages of notes, but when I started writing, the story felt dead on the page. So I scrapped the outline and wrote a different story from scratch in three days, just following a character's voice. It flowed way better, but now I'm stuck at the midpoint with no plan. Which camp are you in - outlines or seat-of-your-pants writing? How do you keep momentum either way?

2 comments

2 Comments

kai_west1mo ago

The whole "stuck at the midpoint" thing is real. A buddy of mine tried pantsing a horror novel and got 40,000 words in before realizing he wrote himself into a basement with no exit. He ended up having a character randomly find a trapdoor. Never finished the book. Sometimes a loose outline beats digging yourself out of a hole.

bettyhunt1mo agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, I've been there myself... wrote two characters into a cave with no escape route.