Outlandish Outlining

By
Thomasnovels

When I start to write a new book, I build a detailed outline with lots of flow charts on characters, settings, research and dialogue. It really is a beautiful thing to gaze upon and takes up the entire bulletin board above my desk. Nice neat columns and color-coded notes. But as I’m working on the outline, a scene from further into the book will flash across a synaptic and I want to get it written down before it dissolves into the ether. So out come the Post-it Notes (remembering some words are copyrighted). If I’m out of Post-it Notes (did I forgot to do the shopping … again?) then colored index cards will work. I just pushpin (spelt pushpin, push-pin or push pin and not copyrighted) them right onto the outline, obscuring most of the page. Index cards are also handy for the bedside table when those I’m-almost-asleep-ideas hit and the person beside of you wants to know what the hell are you doing over there. Index cards flip better than Post-it Notes.

Now I’m ready to move onto the computer (that doesn’t like Post-it Notes and don’t even think about pushpins) where I type all these notes in sort of a free flowing document. Thoughts, plots, ideas, scattering of dialogues all divided with a line of bold, red question marks because by now I’m questioning if all this stuff will ever become a story let alone a book. Pages and pages fill up with gibberish until I’m lost and can’t remember where any of the good stuff is. I hit print (do the ink prayer), grab the sheaf of papers and cut and paste. Literally. I cut it all up at the question marks and start to organize it into a timeline. By now the characters have gone off in a corner for a cigarette break and I’m almost sure they’re talking about me.

My beautiful, original outline has disappeared under an avalanche of paper. Important scenes on Post-it Notes have melted and fluttered down like snowflakes. (Could that murder scene be what I wrote the shopping list on the back of? I hope it’s not floating around at the grocery store. Of course, they would have to have handwriting samples to prove it was mine and I don’t think I wrote a check.) The entire apartment looks like an office supply store blew up in it. The person from the other side of the bed complains there is so many Post-it Notes on the bathroom mirror he cannot see to shave and sleeping with me did not include sleeping with Chapter Three under his hip all night. I dive for the bed, pretend to be changing the sheets while searching for the real sheets.

None of this has anything to do with writing the book but it seems to be a process I need to go through to get to the actual writing part. When I actually start cleaning up the mess, I wonder if the inside of my head looks like the inside of the apartment after a long writing spell. I have unearthed cryptic notes months later where even I can’t read my own handwriting and can only hope I didn’t leave a character sitting somewhere, waiting on me to come back.

And my daughter once found the shopping list for villain’s murder kit on the front of the refrigerator and wanted to know if she should stop by the store on her way home.