“I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.” IfsWritingBookCharacterMovingPurposeBehindsReaderComfortablePagesUltimateSmellBlockNovelistsPlotOutlinesPhonyPlausibleSynopsis Author:Clive Cussler
“I outline fairly extensively because I'm usually dealing with real events. I don't need to give myself as much information as I used to, but I still like to have two pages of outline for every projected 100 pages of manuscript.” NeedsGivingStillsTwoRealUsedEventsInformationPagesOutlinesManuscripts Author:Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
“Adaptation is always the same process for me, which is some version of throwing the book at the wall and seeing what pages fall out. It is trying to imagine, remember the story, read it, put it down, and then write sort of an outline without the book in front of you with some hope that what you like about it will be filtered and distilled out through your memory and then that will be similar to what other people like about it.” PeopleWritingTryingBookStoriesRememberFallProcessMemoriesImagineSeeingFrontsWallPagesDown AndVersionsThrowingAdaptationOur MemoriesOutlines Author:Akiva Goldsman
“My [story] outlines are usually about 5-6 pages long. I'm essentially telling myself the story in short form. I try to make it clear who the major characters are, what they want, and what obstacles they face.” WantTryingLongCharacterStoriesFacesFormClearMajorsPagesObstaclesOutlines Author:Chevy Stevens
“I might spend 100 pages trying to get to know the world I'm writing about: its contours, who are my main characters, what are their relationships to each other, and just trying to get a sense of what and who this book is about. Usually around that point of 100 pages, I start to feel like I'm lost, I have too much material, it's time to start making some choices. It's typically at that point that I sit down and try to make a formal outline and winnow out what's not working and what I'm most interested in, where the story seems to be going.” KnowsWorldFeelsWritingTryingBookCharacterStoriesSeemsMightChoicesLostToo MuchMaterialsPagesDown AndFormalOutlinesMain Characters Author:Michael Chabon
“Poetry is any page from a sketchbook of outlines of a doorknob with thumb-prints of dust, blood, dreams.” DreamBloodPagesDustPoetry IsPrintThumbsOutlinesSketchbooks Book:Smoke and steel: Slabs of the sunburnt West. Good morning, America Source: Smoke and steel: Slabs of the sunburnt West. Good morning, America
“A lot of people think that they are really cool because they don't outline. In my writing group, they would say, "I will never outline. I let the characters take me." C'mon, man - I outline the story, but it's only like one page. It's a list of possible reversals in the story, like things where everything will just change because of this certain reveal or this certain action. Then I start really digging into the character because, to me, I don't care what the story is.” PeopleThinkingMenWritingCharacterStoriesCareActionCertainGroupsPagesDon't CareListsI Don't CareTake MeReally CoolDiggingOutlinesReversal Author:Matt de la Pena
“The 250-page outline for American Tabloid. The books are so dense. They're so complex, you cannot write like I write off the top of your head. It's the combination of that meticulousness and the power of the prose and, I think, the depth of the characterizations and the risks that I've taken with language that give the books their clout. And that's where I get pissed off at a lot of my younger readers.” ThinkingGivingWritingBookLanguageTakenRiskReaderPagesComplexesDepthCombinationProseOutlinesDenseTabloidsPissed OffCharacterizationClout Author:James Ellroy
“I do not often follow my characters off on tangents or change my story on a whim. I have an outline which I follow quite sternly...for a good long while. Then it turns out in some way to be insurmountably wrong and I am forced to re-think every component. Usually at this point I throw hundreds of pages away.” ThinkingWayLongCharacterStoriesTurnsPagesComponentsOutlinesWhimGood Long Author:Megan Chance
“As I got farther and farther along in the series I did less and less preparation. I didn't use outlines or sketches. I just had a vague idea of what I wanted to tell and then the dialogue just came to me as I was inking the page.” IdeasUseWantedPagesSeriesDialoguePreparationVagueOutlinesVague Ideas Author:Jhonen Vasquez