Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline

by Dean Wesley Smith

Later on in this book, I’ll also talk about the many problems that stop outline writers. One major factor is boredom.

That's not my problem. My problem is I go "off script" almost immediately.

When I have a chapter finished, I jot down who the viewpoint characters are, what they are wearing, what happened in the chapter.

This is helpful.

Yet, many long-term professional writers write this way.

Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre this way.

English teachers build on that belief system by taking apart books and talking about the deep meaning and what the writer was doing.

It's called the study of Literature and it is foundational to all that comes later.

A writer like Cussler or Patterson or Nora Roberts or Grisham can entertain millions of readers with every book, and you and your overhyped critical voice will think they can’t write at all. That’s critical voice turned on far too high and your ego far, far out of control.

And if you automatically copyedit everything you read, go get help.

You know, all that English class crap you were taught by people good at deconstruction but shitty at creative work.

You have to know that the desire to consciously put in all the literary crap is your critical voice, the thing that is out to stop you cold.

Again, no. And judgemental. Literary "crap"? Seriously?