One post tagged with "outlining"

Here's a statistic that should haunt every aspiring novelist: most novels are never finished. Not because writers lack talent or dedication, but because somewhere around the 20,000-word mark, the story collapses under its own weight. Plot threads tangle. Characters wander. The exciting idea that launched the project fades into a mess of scenes that don't connect.

The pantsers — writers who "fly by the seat of their pants" with no outline — will disagree. Some of them finish books. Some of them finish great books. But for every pantser who succeeds, dozens abandon manuscripts in the graveyard of "I'll come back to it."

Outlining isn't a creative straitjacket. It's the foundation that lets you be creative without getting lost.