How to Outline Without Outlining

We all have our own style
We all have our own style

I do not outline. I have tried to outline my stories. I have taken classes on outlining my stories. I have read books on outlining my stories, but the fact is I am not an outliner. If I have an entire idea in my head I write and write until I have it out on the page. If I only have a partial idea I write it down and then see where it takes me. I may know how the story will end but I usually have no idea how I am going to get there.

There are lots of opinions on outlining. Some people say it is absolutely necessary. Others say it can be optional. I believe that even though I am incapable of outlining before the story is done it is handy to have an outline after I know what happens in my story.

One way to make an outline for revising purposes is to read the story after it is done and write down the major plot points. I used to do it that way but it felt a lot like the homework I avoided in Jr. High. (For some reason I had teachers who thought outlining the chapter I was reading was a good idea. I disagreed.)

I have now found a way to outline as I write the story which kills two birds with one stone (look, a cliché!) I use the table of contents feature in MS Word and once I am done with the story I have a neat outline that not only gives me notes about the plot but also how many pages each chapter has so I can tell where I need to expand and where I need to cut.

I was going to explain how to set up an table of contents in MS Word but any Dummies Guide can do it better. I will explain that when I start a new chapter I type the chapter number in a Heading 1 style and a short description of the chapter on the next line in Heading 2 style. If I have notes I want to add to the table of contents I type them in the Heading 3 style. As long as I do these three things I am guaranteed to have a complete outline when I am done.

There are lots of writing programs that will outline your story for you. I have considered trying some of them but the truth is MS Word does everything I need so I have decided to save my money and work with what I am familiar with. This applies to all aspects of my writing. I could outline because everyone says to, but I prefer to stick with what works for me. I hope you follow the same rules for your writing. The only rules you should be following are the ones that work for you.

“Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing. ”   E.L. Doctorow

Webinar or Web-i-not

I won't be hooked again!
I won’t be hooked again!

web·i·nar

noun, often capitalized \ˈwe-bə-ˌnär\ :  a live online educational presentation during which participating viewers can submit questions and comments

I like learning online and have taken several types of online classes in the past few years. Last week I signed up for two free webinars. That is what they were advertised as – “free webinars”. Well they were free and they at first appeared to be webinars but they both soon became infomercials. Their sole purpose was not to teach me anything, but to convince me to take a class expanding on what I thought I would be getting out of the webinar.

Now I have no problem with infomercials. I watch lots of late night ads for blenders and knives and weight loss products. But I know from the start that it is a sales pitch. Why didn’t the people putting on the free webinar mention that it is a sales pitch for their class? I could then decide whether I want to hear the pitch. Hiding the pitch inside the webinar without warning me is a good way to turn me against anything they are selling.

This is going to be a bit of a rant about the two webinars I saw. It may not be representative of all webinars but I feel that two in two days from two different unrelated people on two unrelated topics (their only connection was writing) means that there are a lot more out there. I’d just like to see a bit more transparency. Thus my following rant.

State your price up front. If you are selling a product or a class do not make me wait until the end to find out the price. If you think your price is fair then state it up front. One of the webinars was selling a ten week class for $899. That seemed fair for what the student would receive, but it is not something I can afford. Had I known the price up front then I would not have wasted my time and I might have considered the class in the future. Instead I was just annoyed. Annoyed readers do not become paying students.

Get the technology right. It is amazing what we can do on the internet. People in various parts of the world can come together and watch a live video of someone who has put together a Power Point presentation and we can interact with each other and the presenter. Amazing, right? Well it would be if the person using the technology did a good job. On the first webinar the technology was second rate, fuzzy, and the comments section didn’t work. On the second webinar the sound was too loud, the delay was maddening, and several students had to leave due to the variation in loudness. Plus the presenter claimed it was the students’ issue when it was actually her mike and how she had it positioned. I know the webinar was free, but since it was actually an infomercial why would I want to take your class if you aren’t going to get the technology right. I wouldn’t pay just because of the frustration. If you don’t know how to make the technology work properly than hire someone who does. Since you are using the webinar to make money putting a little money into the presentation can’t hurt.

Don’t read your Power Point presentation. I can read a book if I just want the information on the page. When the presenter says nothing else but what is on the screen they are wasting my time. The page is supposed to be a summary that you expand on, not the only thing you can think to say.

I guess that is all. I will be hesitant to see anymore free webinars. I believe there is no such thing as a free lunch but why not be honest. These webinars were bait to get people interested in their classes. I’m fine with that technique, but I am not going to be hooked again.

“Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it.”  ~Mark Twain

 

Keeping My Writing on Track

IMG_0355I love Amtrak. They are far from perfect and rarely get me where I want to go when I want to get there but I still love Amtrak. I’ve been put on buses several stops before my station and I’ve arrived at Portland, OR at 2 a.m. instead of 6 p.m. the previous evening, but I still love Amtrak. There is just something otherworldly about traveling by train. And now I love Amtrak even more because I may be able to ride and write for free.

The Amtrak Residency for Writers is an innovative program. Imagine taking a free multi-day, round-trip ride on Amtrak for the sole purpose of writing. What started as one person’s experience that became a viral idea among the writing community has become an organized plan by Amtrak. And it is available to anyone who wants to write, not just published authors.

I think Amtrak is being amazingly generous. They are providing a room on a sleeper car for free and they are not expecting anything in return. You do not have to write about Amtrak and you do not have to show your work when your ride is over. I don’t believe in a free lunch but this is as close as one may get.

For this first go around they are giving away 24 writing residencies. Giving away, as in, no cost to ride. If that sounds amazing to you then click here to sign up. Whether I win or not I will be riding Amtrak more often now and perhaps I’ll even get some writing done. I hope Amtrak’s innovation spreads to other unusual areas of the world. Happy travels.

“I sat and thought for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn’t know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.” – J.K. Rowling (maybe I should hope that the Amtrak is delayed.)

 

Write Anything (But Ship Also)

IMG_0775One of my goals is to write 500 words a day, every day in 2014. So far I have written everyday and only missed 500 words on two days. Most days I write 800 or more. In January I averaged 891 words a day. This may sound difficult to do but I gave myself only one rule. Write 500 words a day. It doesn’t matter what the 500 words are. Sometimes I type a post for my various websites. Sometimes I work on new projects. And sometimes I type whatever comes into my head.

I have a document called 500 words. Every other day or so I put the date on the page and start writing. This is discovery writing. It has no purpose except to be at least 500 words. I have one series going about a woman who is losing weight and discovering a new life through running. It’s not publishable but it is fun to explore her life. Usually I start something entirely new, with new characters in a new place with a new plot. I find it extremely easy to write these shorts. They have no beginning and no end. They are simply a spark.

Sometimes I feel guilty for writing shorts that are never going to go anywhere. I know I should be working on projects that are shippable. (If you haven’t heard of shipping it is the idea of taking your product and getting it in front of the public. You don’t really have a product until you ship it.) However, I try to remind myself that each of these character and plot shorts could be used someday in a story and what I write today could be invaluable tomorrow.

I am curious if other writers do this…I don’t know what to call it, perhaps, free writing. There are a lot of books and websites out there that have writing prompts. Do these prompts produce free writing? I never use the prompts because I have too many ideas in my own head and don’t need any more. I have often thought of writing a book called “Beginnings.” It would contain nothing but 500ish word story beginnings. Any writer could then take these beginnings and turn them into their own story. I still think this could be fun. I wonder how many beginnings I would need to make a book. I think at least 100. Perhaps my free writing could eventually be shippable, too.

The hardest part of writing for me is shipping it out. It is much easier to keep it in my computer where no one can tell me how bad it is. But I never regret it when I do ship something so I should do it more often. With self-publishing and Amazon it costs me nothing but time and perhaps an editor to publish a book. But just once I’d like to get something published by the big guys (meaning New York publishers). Perhaps not my “Beginnings” book, but something. So I need to ship to the big guys. A lot.

Writing 500 words a day has been a good goal for me. So far I have stuck with it more than any of my other 2014 goals. Maybe I should add a shipping goal to my list. I will ship something to a major publisher once a month. It would be a good start. And just maybe I’ll get less nervous the more I do it.

“The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.” – Seth Godin