Outlining

I’ve been looking at a lot of different books on outlining over the last week or so. Yes, it is absolutely a way to procrastinate, but it isn’t JUST a way to procrastinate.

The truth is that I’m working on a complex idea with at least three storylines/POV characters that I expect to stretch across a handful of books. I was only able to write my first book (not even that well, it turns out) with a decent outline, and that was somewhat more straightforward… so an outline feels essential.

But man, some of these outline books/tips/guides are awful. I don’t just mean that they won’t work for me, I mean they couldn’t possibly help anyone.

I tried to return one to Amazon because it was largely just a summary of different styles of outlining. Like, a page or two on three act structure, then a page or two on the hero’s journey, then a page or two on the concept of using notecards… the font was huge, the editing was nonexistent, the information was both useless and available elsewhere, and the writer giving the advice had only ever published other books on how to get published.

His real secret seems to be writing books about writing books instead of actually writing books.

Anyway, I asked for a refund and got it, but Amazon didn’t want this book back.

Feels like a commentary on the book, huh?

Okay, I’m done procrastinating by writing about reading about outlining. Time to get at least one layer closer to actually doing something.