To Outline or Not to Outline?

A while back I posted my thoughts about outlining in a blog post titled, "Does outlining your fiction story stifle your writing?"

Here's a response I received from Tina:

Love this. It's so true that preparation does not dilute the art. Different authors just approach it in a different way, don't we?

I just dive into writing the story, myself, while a friend of mine outlines in detail. He sticks pretty close to his outline, but has freedom in writing the ending and if the story changes, the outline changes.

I don't think it changes all that much. I am more loose in my method and take a lot of notes and have a lot of different files that I play with as I write. My outline ends up being more of a chapter by chapter summary once I get to it.

I think my friend is blessed that he is so good at outlining, but in the end, we all must make an outline anyway since marketing usually wants to see a good map. I'm glad you posted this on Twitter. Great advice.

Nigel writes re-outlining: A great example. I like outlining. In the space of minutes to hours it allows me to really see if a plot is going to have all the right attributes for me to start writing. Lots of them don't, so I outline again.

That way I see far more plots that I ever would if I sat down and typed 100k to find out the flaws. We do it in our group with both plots and characters, and that helps too, because I (we) are forced to look at genres we wouldn't normally read or write.

And I'm only slightly jealous about not seeing the sketches!

Dear Tina and Nigel,

It's great to hear from you both. Nigel, it's especially good to have the response of another male author. Thanks for writing.

And for the female authors who question this in regards to women's fiction:

I have just returned from lunch with Debbie Macomber, whose work has sold over one hundred million copies. Debbie not only outlines, she timelines – setting up her plots according to the date and the week and the season.

Just something to keep in mind.