Read on Twitter
Yeah! So - I will caveat, outlining is highly individualized, and I know people who outline in both far more and far less detail than I do, but this is what works for me: https://twitter.com/mesmey/status/1319871609767890946">https://twitter.com/mesmey/st...
I tend to outline by scene. Each scene is a bullet point that has the major beats underneath it, some of which may make their way explicitly into the scene and some of which may just be background notes. I& #39;m going to use trash magician as an example again:
Some outline scenes have snippets of dialogue. Sometime this makes it into the final version unchanged, but more often this it& #39;s just a starting point, an idea that I want to get across:
And there& #39;s point 3b, which is - IGNORE THE FUCKING OUTLINE when you need to. For example, the final scene of trash magician originally took place in yibo& #39;s kitchen, not the vacation home:
The bones of those notes made it through, but the final implementation looked significantly different. Finally, when I& #39;ve got the scenes I think I want in the order I think I want them, I put them in a table which helps me conceptualize the overall flow:
Usually I& #39;ve started writing at this point, and from there it& #39;s a matter of outrunning my own anxieties haha. The outline helps me feel like I& #39;m making progress, but I tend to write them loosely enough that I still feel like I& #39;m discovering the story as it& #39;s being written.
I also tend to add/clarify scenes as I go - the final scene count is always larger than the initial estimate, as I figure out what needs to happen, or what tropes/ideas I& #39;d like to explore along the way.
Outlining helps me organize my thoughts, but I never feel beholden to it if I get to a point where it feels like the story needs to go in a different direction. I will say, though, that it is incredibly satisfying to cross sections off then they& #39;re complete. :D
