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I told a new writer to just start typing, then watched her outline for 6 hours and produce something better than mine
I run a small writers group at the library in Boise, about nine of us, and for two years I've been the guy who says prompts are a starting point, not homework, just write the scene and see what happens. Last Tuesday a new member named Dana sat down with the prompt about a character finding a locked door and instead of writing she spent the whole meeting making a bullet list. Beginning, middle, three possible endings, a note about what the door smells like. I figured she'd stall out. She came back this week with 1,800 words that had a real shape to them and I read my own 400 word scene and it just wandered around like a lost dog. So I've been wondering if the whole freewrite school of thought only works for people who already know how to build a scene in their head, and for folks starting out the outline is doing the actual heavy lifting. I'm not saying scrap prompts, but maybe we've all been handing out the same advice for so long that nobody checked if it still works. What does your group do, freewrite right away or plan first, and has anybody seen the plan first crew turn out stronger drafts?
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finley9188d ago
Used to roll my eyes at the outline crowd. Figured they were scared of the blank page and the planning was just stalling with extra steps. Then my nephew asked me to look at his first short story and it was all vibes and no bones, guy had a cool opening image and then three pages of nothing happening. He showed me his notes afterward and there was a whole map in there he just had not typed out yet. Made me eat my words a little. Now I tell the new folks to do whatever gets them to a finished draft, cause the outline was never the enemy, I just wanted it to be.
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