What I read: Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline by Dean Wesley Smith. Published May 17, 2015.
As a writer, I’ve consumed gobs of advice about how to write best. One of the most ubiquitous among the advice is to outline before writing. I heard this advice in my school English classes. I’ve read this advice in articles and books on writing. I’ve listened to this advice from videos and podcasts about writing.
So, it should come as no surprise that I struggled for a long time with my own process because I don’t outline before I write. I don’t outline before I write articles, posts, books, anything. The only exception has been when I’ve worked as a technical writer and the structure of what I’m writing had to be seen and discussed between me and technical expert collaborators, or when I’m writing a document as part of a group co-publishing the document collectively.
How do I write then? I just write. I put one word after another, overwrite, delete a bunch of stuff, and reshuffle and combine the words, sentences, and paragraphs until I like what I read. That’s really my entire writing process in a nutshell.
That sound I’m hearing in the distance might be you screaming at your laptop or phone that I’m wrong. I know. The “outline first” guidance has been a truism in English classes at all education levels in which I’ve participated. From what I’ve read, it’s still how most teachers and professors ask their students to prepare to write.
I get it. It sounds ideal. Create the skeleton, then flesh it out with robust content that aligns with the outline. That’s great if it works for you. But what Dean Wesley Smith’s book did for me was validate that I’m not alone in my process of “writing into the dark.” As I read his short book (you can read it quickly in an evening), I kept nodding my head in agreement because I saw myself and my process in everything he wrote.
Before you ask, yes, I’ve tried to outline. Many times. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Despite the mental roadblocks it sets up for me, I’ve still attempted to outline before crafting words because I kept hearing from all quarters how important it is. Yet, I’ve produced a lot of published content over the years without outlining any of it.
I do what Smith calls writing into the dark which he describes this way.
Some call it “writing by the seat of your pants.” There are other terms for it that are so stupid, I can’t bring myself to even type the names of them.
Basically, writing into the dark means that you decide to write a story without an outline.
Smith goes on to explain that he writes without an advance outline because he believes it empowers his creative voice versus his critical voice. He contends that great art is rarely produced from a critical perspective.
Great art emanates from our creative brain, not our critical brain. From birth, the creative side of our brains have been trained into loving story. Smith suggests that writers often struggle to circumvent the critical side of their brain to write from the creative side. Outlining is a critical activity, not a creative one. So, when we try to outline from a critical mindset and then attempt to write from a creative mindset, there’s a clash.
I also think that applies to many creative endeavors. Too much planning can stifle creativity whether you’re designing a dress or composing a song.
While I’ve done some fiction writing and am currently undertaking more fiction projects, the vast majority of my writing has been nonfiction. Because of the nature of nonfiction, many would argue that even if writing fiction might be better accomplished without an outline, nonfiction would benefit greatly from outlining. Well, that’s not how it works for me.
Often when I describe the nonfiction writing process, I use the story metaphor. Good nonfiction writing tells a story, at least a strong narrative that pushes the reader along to the conclusion in some compelling way. I choose to call that story. You might call it something else.
My process is my brain writes the words, sometimes in random and out of order chunks, then puts them together in a coherent narrative somewhat like assembling a puzzle. Even for nonfiction I just start writing. Sometimes what I produce is great. Sometimes what I produce is crap. But I keep writing, keep adding or deleting words, moving words, sentences, and paragraphs around, until I’m reasonably happy with the result.
I also don’t rewrite much. Smith is not a fan of rewriting, instead doing something akin to my own process which he calls cycling. Cycling is writing for a while in short segments, then going back to the beginning of that section to revisit and improve it in real time, or perhaps going back even further to revisit and improve a larger segment, until you reach the blank space at which you left off and you keeping writing. Repeat. That’s a good description of approximately my writing process too. So, I guess I’ve always cycled naturally.
Contrary to what many writing coaches and teachers will say, I don’t plow ahead and write whatever the heck comes out of my fingers without correcting, tweaking, honing, and making better the writing as I write.
To Smith’s credit, he never once says this is the only way to write. It’s his way. He suggests and I’d agree that probably more writers should write into the dark to free up their creative energies. But, of course, some writers will want to write their own way. Maybe that includes an outline. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is that a writer writes as much as they want to write with as few roadblocks as possible and the end result pleases them.
Smith offers some great advice and tips throughout. The book is short enough that you can discover those for yourself if you read the book. I don’t want to steal too much of Smith’s thunder.
One tip that does recur and with which I’m in total agreement is that when encountering a mental block or a quandary about which way to go with your writing, just write. Put words down on the screen, or paper if you’re someone who writes by hand. Just keep writing. You might overwrite and end up with a lot of words you don’t need, but amid the process of continuing to write you often work out the problem that tried to stop you. The writing solution comes from writing more until the problem is solved. I know that sounds simplistic, but it’s true. Just keep writing. Put one word after another until things make a bit more sense and then you can proceed unencumbered.
One of the ways Smith explains the advantages of writing into the dark is to liken the reading and writing processes. What keeps us engaged as readers is that we don’t know how the story will end. Smith suggests that’s what keeps us engaged as readers and that’s what will keep a writer engaged in the writing process, the exploration and discovery that takes place as the story unfolds in real time as one writes. That made a lot of sense to me.
Another thing that Smith recommends is to not get hung up on writing a short story, novel, or whatever, start to finish in sequence. I often write out of sequence. I’ve written an introductory section and a conclusion before I’ve written the middle part. I’ve written blog posts that ended up becoming part of a longer article or book. I’ve written standalone paragraphs that ended up being moved around until it found its final home. There is no one way to write and getting hung up on writing sequentially can halt progress and stifle the entire project that ends up on the shelf never to be picked up again.
Whether you write fiction like Smith does, or you write nonfiction like I mostly do, I think you’ll get a lot out of the book. Even though I already write pretty much as he suggests, having a successful and prolific writer like Smith explain that he does too gave me a kind of creative solace that I evidently needed.
I think anyone who writes will find what Smith has to say valuable, or at least worth considering.
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For the novel I am working on, I have written a very loose outline: this is the major plot point of each chapter, and sometimes a few notes about specific items I need to get in each one, specific quotes or setups.
For the chapters, more loose writing, allowing the characters to explore the situation at hand and dictating where it goes. So long as I accomplish the goal for the chapter, it might be 5 pages or 45, we will see.