Outlining

By On July 22, 2011 · 10 Comments · In Musings

I’m going to try to outline a novel.

I’m terrified.

I don’t even know where to start. I’m thinking I’ll either use Scrivener tools or the snowflake method. What bothers me about the snowflake method is you don’t really get to do a mind mapping snowflake kind of thing, you just write stuff.

Yeah. Weird stuff bugs me. (I have a migraine now and the world feels somewhat surreal. Now is a GREAT time to write…)

Or I could just do mind mapping. That’s kinda fun. I liked the mind mapping tool I had on my iPod Touch, but I hated the keyboard for anything longer than a text, and I no longer have my iPod, so the point is moot. Maybe I’ll look for a desktop app. That would be neat.

(after a couple of minutes) OK! I have the MindNode free app from the Apple App Store. Will play with that for a bit and see if it does me any good.

Anyway. Wish me luck. Also, painkillers.

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10 Responses to Outlining

  1. David Niall Wilson says:
    July 22, 2011 at 11:22 am

    But why must there be an app or a tool? My most useful outlines have been a series of “scenes” written in paragraph form – detailed enough to let me know what happens and open enough to let me create…

    I usually outline about 30 chapters for a novel in this way, and then, about halfway through I jump the rails slightly, though usually still reaching the same destination. Sometimes I stop and re-outline from the derailment point…

    • Mur says:
      July 22, 2011 at 11:24 am

      Never said there “must be.” I am unused to outlining and I enjoyed what little exposure i’ve had to mind mapping, so I thought i’d try it out.

  2. Jason says:
    July 22, 2011 at 11:38 am

    I’ve never had much luck with outlining either. I always mean to keep it high-level and brief, but I find that by about halfway through I end up just writing full paragraphs and scenes. I haven’t tried mind-mapping, but from what little I know of it it does seem closer to the way I plan. I’ll be curious to see how it works out for you. Good luck!

  3. Heidi says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    I’ve recently started using two desktop apps for outlining:

    1) XMind:
    http://www.xmind.net
    XMind is a free mind-mapping app that I’m finding to be *much* more powerful than freemind was. The non-professional version is free and still has massive capabilities. It’s set up to use as an online collaboration tool, but in my unwillingness to believe that a website will properly protect my info, I just didn’t create an account and don’t upload.

    2) Storybook
    http://storybook.intertec.ch/joomla/
    Storybook is an open source program that helps you organize scenes and plotlines. It also stores character and location information.

    I don’t know if that helps, but that’s my two cents. If you only have time for one, I’d highly recommend XMind.

  4. Gregory Lemon says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    May I recommend my favorite mind-mapping tool: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

    It’s free, open-source, and cross-platform. I also use the “Thinking Space” app to sync this to my various Android devices.

    This was my favorite tool in October to help me for NaNoWriMo.

  5. jeffcg says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    I’ve never been much of an outliner, either. What I’ve done on my current project is, once I had an idea of where things were going, plot things out a few chapters in advance. Then, once I was about half-way through, I put down what I wanted to happen in the rest of the book, decided how many chapters that would be, and set the pacing.

    And suddenly that sounds like outlining. But not in a bullet-points kind of way. More just writing out a chapter synopsis. For example:

    Chapter 18—10pm
    The vampire (Edgar) is taken to the Cambridge Police and placed in a cell. He heals very quickly. Eddie is not the boss, and does not know the whole plan. Boston was a diversion so that they could get into the labs at MIT. There is a piece of equipment that the boss wants. Eddie won’t give up the location of the boss, but the information that he does give is very interesting. He reveals that DDay is on Monday (10/20), that even if they save Boston they will lose the country. This whole chapter is Scanlon’s interrogation of Eddie.

  6. Hugh J. O'Donnell says:
    July 25, 2011 at 11:27 pm

    The nice thing about outlines, of course, is that you don’t HAVE to stick to them. I’m one of those strange people who needs structure, and I almost always write the ending first, but it’s good to stretch and try different tools. Good luck, Mur!
    Also, Happy Birthday!

  7. Jean Marie Bauhaus says:
    July 26, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    I’m days late with this, but Holly Lisle’s Plot Outline Mini Course is free (I think), and it is awesome.

  8. JSvetlik says:
    July 27, 2011 at 11:58 am

    I would be interested in seeing this process unfold. Would you be willing to post your mindmaps/outline as they are being built?