Why I Have to Outline

Because my brain doesn't work right. This article says that the way my brain works is good for solving problems. Thinking outside the box. Connecting things in ways one doesn't ordinarily connect them. This is a good thing in many ways. It's a good way to be creative.

But it's also like this, although I don't have ADD. Or maybe I do.

When I start thinking about a story, I just mess around playing computer card games or pinning stuff on Pinterest or hunting mushrooms or cooking or whatever, free-associating with whatever started the story in the first place. It's a little like the time after the big bang — remember? — when atoms coalesced and, the next thing you knew, there were stars and stuff? 'Member?

But shiny isn't the same as story. All that stuff has to be put in some kind of order. Even stories in which things are shuffled around had to be put in order before they were shuffled. William Faulkner knew exactly the order in which things happened when he wrote "A Rose For Emily". Virginia Woolf didn't just hop from one point of view to another at random. James Joyce didn't just ramble in his narrative.

So outlining. That's the part I hate about writing. You have to catch all your happy little fish and rabbits and hummingbirds and write choreography for them and teach them the routine. If you're lucky, you end up with the Rockettes. Or at least Rocky Horror.

Outlining is telling all the sparkly possibilities that don't fit that they can't be in the show. Outlining is, to continue the choreography metaphor, A Chorus Line. I only wish my outlines came out as well as that.

WRITING PROMPT: What do you dislike most (or like the least) about writing?

MA