Do you write with an outline? I was asked this by another writer at a book event last weekend. ‘I like outlines,’ she said, ‘and I don’t like them. I want to know where I’m going. But if I make a scene-by-scene breakdown, I find I’m not interested in writing the complete book.’ I thought it […]
It might be a terminology difference between screenwriting and prose writing. Screenwriters talk about treatments. Usually they're very detailed, a scene-by-scene breakdown. Often they're for executives to read. Outlines for novelists tend to be more fluid unless they're being shown to someone who has to approve the story, as in ghostwriting.