The Step Outline

Disclaimer: Okay this may read like stupidly obvious advice. A step outline may just seem like any other set of notes. For me I think it's more a case of my writing mentality adjusting.

I feel compelled to talk a little more about the step outline. We were introduced to them as a stage in the screenwriting process. I'm finding I use them increasingly often in any and all my writings. Even before I begin I have ideas for the story I want to tell. These ideas are more often than not scattered throughout the whole and there are gaping chasms that need filling before any of it will hold together. The step outline allows me to get around that. It gives me permission to write less. By this I mean I can summarise rather than get lost in prose. I can sketch out the entire piece before getting bogged down in the details.

This is a bit of a departure for me. In the past I'd been taught to free write and been a great advocate of free writing in general. There's still something attractive about plowing into a story and letting it unfold itself. But here's the thing: There's always something nagging away when I free write. I feel like I'm on the crest of a wave of words and any minute it's going to break and I'll be left unable to continue. It's because I don't know what's going to happen next. At all. A step outline lets me avoid that. I can still free write a scene and if it's strong enough it may alter the outline but I know how things are supposed to fit together. And that helps.

So yeah. Obvious advice. But useful... for me anyway.