The Outline: One of the Words that Gets in the Way

It happens occasionally. I usually notice it when someone uses the word "media"--which is, by the way, the plural of "medium." Too many people I know, on hearing the word, will immediately think of "the press," or "the news," though the media are many, unless the term used is "the news media." But even then it could refer to the press, radio coverage, TV coverage, and news magazines, all of them at once.

Something similar happens when I present ideas in a writing class on various ways that writers plan their writing. I talk about planning, but prewriting and invention are also terms I use. For many of my students who are thinking that the class is just a repeat of high school, the term "planning" will mean simply "creating an outline."

But this is the last thing I mean. One benefit of having taught for a while is that I can usually anticipate wrong reactions to things and correct them. I usually follow up my use of the term "planning" by refuting the idea that outlines are very helpful. I mention other ideas--freewriting, brainstorming, thinking about your audience, cubing, and listing. But I stay away from formal outlines.


Planning that Works
The whole point in this part of a writing process is to come up with something that works. Like most of my students, I was not taught process in high school. I was taught to write a formal outline before writing a research paper. But I found that method too rigid. When I would begin to write, new ideas would occur to me, and I would begin to see my subject in ways I hadn't anticipated before writing. But I had to ignore these new insights and stay with the outline my teacher had already approved.

Again, this never helped much.

I discovered when I began writing short works that I didn't need an outline because I would already have one in my head. I would know--as with this blog--where I was going.

But with longer works, I would list things, chunk ideas together before writing about them. Then I would write, and I would discover new ideas.

This has happened as I've worked on my new novel, which has the working title Radio Eden. I had a general idea of the over-all plot and what is supposed to happen to the main characters. But as I began to write my way in last summer, new things happened as I was writing that led to new insights. I wrote at the time not being sure of how the main plot would unfold, but as I have written and then reflected on what I have, a new understanding of how things come to take place--for example, how the CIA gets involved at the local level where I am writing--has all unfolded. I am writing the second half--and rewriting the first half, with this new understanding.

The Lost Pilgrim and the Real Purpose of My Outlines
This is not a process I would wish on anyone. It almost feels religious in how it leads to doubts and big questions about the point of everything and why I'm even writing it. There were several days this fall when I though I wasn't going to finish. I was a pilgrim who lost his way.

But I know that writing a long work has many levels and much complexity. Writing a single linear outline misses the point.

Here is the way that outlines work for me. They work as a revision tool, what Composition teachers refer to as "reverse outlining." That is, instead of writing an outline at the beginning of the process, as a planning device, I write the outline when I've written my rough draft. I did this with my first novel. With the rough draft in hand, I wrote a chapter by chapter outline. This allowed me to see the ground I'd covered and hadn't covered, and where I'd gone off course in terms of plot and character. I could then see what I needed to cut and what I needed to add.

This worked, and this is what I'd recommend for any writing that anyone does that is longer than a blog--say a research project.

Then again, even a blog can benefit from the reflection that comes from writing a reverse outline.

This is the advice then. Think about planning a piece of writing the way we think about planning a trip. Give room for many ideas and possibilities to come in. Don't just try to nail everything down before you begin.

When you write, plan, don't just outline.