Guest Post from Author Greg J, Downs

Hello everyone! Today, I have a special guest who would like to share his own journey with the art of outlining: Greg J. Downs. :D He's my age by the way and impressed me to no end; has written two books, the first of which is "Mordred" (I will release a book review soon & I know Greg has waited patiently for it) and "Brother Thief." So, without further ado, here is Mr. Down's article. :D


"How NOT to Outline"
By Greg J. Downs

Hi all, this is LaVel's pal Greg. I saw his post on outlining recently, and it really started me thinking about my own horrible, horrible battles with outlining my work. These thoughts swam around in my head for a while before finally deciding to spill out on paper... er, I mean my Word Processor... and now they've grown into a blog post. LaVel has graciously permitted me to take up his blog space with this, so I'll try to make it worth your while without devolving into one big marketing push for me ;)


I am a full–on, 100%, purebred NERD. I love all things fantasy and most things sci–fi, and this love in turn has produced two novels over the course of time– both of which have been incessantly plagued with outlining difficulties. I'll use examples from each to make points about the subject of outlining... mostly by saying DO NOT DO THIS. (See, this should be making you feel good about yourself already.)


Point #1– Everyone outlines, even those who think of themselves as seat–of–the–pants writers. Everyone starts with an idea, right? I started out by wanting to write a story about King Arthur. Then I decided I wanted King Arthur to be the bad guy, and Mordred, the traditional villain of the legend, to be the good guy. When I sat down to write the story, I decided (in my head) that the best way to make King Arthur the bad guy was to have him order the death Mordred for no reason at all (that Mordred could tell, anyway).


See? I already had a sort of mental picture in my head... and that is the simplest form of outlining.


Point #2– Do not not outline. Yes, I used a double–negative. Take that, grammar class! Anyway, what I mean by saying that is: if you want to write a novel of any length, outlining is essential. While writing my little anti–King–Arthur story, my outline read something like this: “Mordred's village is attacked by the knights of the round table and his parents die, so he runs away into the forest and meets the lady of the lake.” Okay... that little one sentence outline took two 10–page chapters to write (that's 40 paperback pages).


My point? Stories grow. They're living, breathing things. You need to outline your WHOLE book, if it's a book you're writing– and short stories/novellas/novelettes are the same. You also should outline as detailed as you can without losing the fun of the story, so you have an idea of just how long the darned thing is going to be. Now for most people, 1 line of outline will NOT equal 1 chapter of book– that's probably a problem only I have. But you need to know where your story is going, no matter how much space your outline takes up.


When I realized that (more or less) any single sentence I wrote in outlining would become a chapter, I quickly scribbled down a few more sentences to bring my story to a close (I thought it would be a short–story series at the time). Long story short? Mordred fought the forces of King Arthur and Avalon for 30 more computer pages before escaping from a sinking island, saving the King's deadliest knight from death–by–evil–witch, and generally kicking butt everywhere he went.


And guess what? I realized I wasn't done.


Point #3– Outlines are written in easy–cheez, not stone. I'd written about 40 pages of story from a paragraph of outlining. There were still a bajillion strings left untied in the tale, and suddenly I knew... deep within the nerdiest corner of my heart... that I really could write a book. 40 pages... that's like a quarter of the way done, right? So one night I stayed up REALLY late and wrote a four–page outline of my book. I would have to change some things in the original 40–page story, to make it flow better, but so what? (You can tell I'd already forgotten the 1 sentence outline = 1 chapter rule.)


My re–write of those 40 pages ended up being 70 pages. At the end, it looked NOTHING like the original story. My first outline? Useless. My four–page outline? Useless, too. The story had morphed as I re–wrote it, so that I had to write a 3rd outline! This annoyed me hugely, but I've since learned it happens with everything– and I mean EVERYTHING– I write.


My new book? Something like 10 outlines, all very different from each other as the story changed mid–writing.


What I'm trying to say is that while I know I just told you outlining is essential, I didn't tell you the whole thing. Outlining is important, but just like stories, outlines grow... and change... and sometimes DIE A BLOODY DEATH!!!! So if you need to change your outline, do it! If it requires changing huge chunks of story, change them! Or maybe, if that would be too painful, find a way for your new outline to incorporate what you've already written– find a new reason all those prior events are important.


So, what have we learned today, class? Numero Uno: Outlining is natural and unavoidable. Numbah Two: If you want detail in a story, you need a detailed outline. Number Three: Outlines are like transformers. They were made to look cool, no matter what shape they're in. So transform them at will.


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About Greg: Here's where I market myself to you poor people who actually suffered through that whole lecture :P I'm a young author with one book available for the Amazon Kindle and another on the way. To keep track of my writing, 'like' the pages for my books, at http://on.fb.me/mSopPP and http://on.fb.me/p97MbP, or follow my blog at http://bit.ly/ovSDvP. Want to know how that King Arthur story ended? You can buy it as an e–book at http://amzn.to/qoEG1u. Good luck to all you writers out there, and God Bless!


So, what did you think about Greg J. Down's article? Post below on my blog and tell me what you think!! I tell ya', I loved every bit of what Greg had to say. :D