My current writing project (started around the time of Noir City, and put on hold as in-laws and SIFF approached) is my first attempt at outlining in decades. I find that I dislike outlining as much as I did in high school – and frequently drop into scene details when I'm supposedly writing an outline – but it looks like I am likely to get a better-structured story as a result.
Since I'm writing in formula genre (neo-noir), hitting the formula is important, so the outline makes more sense. (It would be even more true if I were writing in a more tightly-defined genre, such as romantic comedy.) The project started out with an specific plot detail puzzle: how to arrange a ransom delivery that wouldn't fail if the police simply watched the drop location until the criminals picked up the ransom. But to make that idea into a story, I need to figure out all the other details: villainous criminal characters, a sympathetic criminal character, the hostage character, and what goes wrong with the perfect criminal plot (since, in noir, something always goes wrong).
So, seat-of-the-pants is a lot easier to write, but having started writing a story with an outline, I see the benefits when a structure is imposed by the genre.
Genre formula observation:
Even if one is going to break some of the conventions of a genre, one has to start by following enough of them that it's an interesting twist when one diverges from the formula.
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Date: Wed, Jul. 3rd, 2013 09:58 pm (UTC)My current writing project (started around the time of Noir City, and put on hold as in-laws and SIFF approached) is my first attempt at outlining in decades. I find that I dislike outlining as much as I did in high school – and frequently drop into scene details when I'm supposedly writing an outline – but it looks like I am likely to get a better-structured story as a result.
Since I'm writing in formula genre (neo-noir), hitting the formula is important, so the outline makes more sense. (It would be even more true if I were writing in a more tightly-defined genre, such as romantic comedy.) The project started out with an specific plot detail puzzle: how to arrange a ransom delivery that wouldn't fail if the police simply watched the drop location until the criminals picked up the ransom. But to make that idea into a story, I need to figure out all the other details: villainous criminal characters, a sympathetic criminal character, the hostage character, and what goes wrong with the perfect criminal plot (since, in noir, something always goes wrong).
So, seat-of-the-pants is a lot easier to write, but having started writing a story with an outline, I see the benefits when a structure is imposed by the genre.
Genre formula observation:
Even if one is going to break some of the conventions of a genre, one has to start by following enough of them that it's an interesting twist when one diverges from the formula.