To outline or not to outline

When I started VIRUS 5 which eventually became Rome's Revolution, I never really outlined the book. For some reason, I kind of knew the whole story from start to finish. So while the individual scenes may have wobbled or mutated, there were certain constants.

Rei, standing alone, seeing Rome for the first time was one. The two of them using the bands and instantly falling in love was another. OMCOM was always there. The Stareaters bearing down them was another. And the mutation scene. All were part of the story before I set down a single word. The rest, well, the characters filled that in for me.

When the time came to write The Ark Lords, while I had an idea of what the story was, or least the beginning and the end, I really didn't know the whole story. So I made an outline. It wasn't hard and fast but it kind of blocked the story out into three acts and gave me a bit of guidance on what each chapter meant, how long it had to be and so on. You can see this stretched a bit thin with the Legend of Jack Henry. It really only takes up three chapters but for the purposes of the book, I needed it to become four. So I arbitrarily split up the final battle at the Tevatron into two pieces even though it doesn't really make sense.

Regardless, the outline served as a nice guide so when I went to write Rome's Evolution, my outline was more detailed. Every chapter was scripted and had a length assigned to it. Some didn't quite fit the bill and others ran over but mostly I followed it fairly carefully.

I did make one mistake. I thought it would be cool to have Rome and Rei take on Steele in the cane-tree forest and THEN break up the story with the second Intermezzo. My first two readers screamed at me. They like the information that the Intermezzo (Rei's space walk) provided but it was a horrible break in the action. My friend Helen calls it shaking your reader out of the 'fictive dream'.

So I moved it up to right after Rome and Rei captured Troutman. I needed you, the reader, to get the information but it didn't bother me that you got it sooner rather than later. So that's the version that is out now. Nobody but those first few readers will ever know that I changed it around.

With the upcoming novel, The Milk Run, I have outlined it as well. There will be one flashback and one flash-sideways but I know now to place them where they don't interfere with the flow of the story.

Other writers may not agree but I think an outline is very useful.