Outlining is the comeuppance of many a student, harshly scolded by their spinster (not, BTW a 'sexist' term, as it applies equally to old crotchety never married men and old crotchety never married women - my oldest brother could, with definitional rectitude be called a 'spinster', except that he doesn't sit about and knit, so far as I know) teachers, that neither they, nor their writing, will ever amount to anything if they do not learn to prepare a "proper" outline, including all of the various indentations and subsections and subsubsubsubsections that the Platonic Ideal of a Good and Right Outline would have.
Outlining -- or the imagined necessity to be able to do it in order to "be" a "good writer" -- is, also, me thinks, the one evil, perverted, pernicious "stop" which has caused more promising writers to lie down their pens, pencils, typewriters or keyboards than any single other cause in the history of the entire galaxy.
I am not saying that an "outline" is not a good thing for certain purposes, none of which have the slightest thing to do with the quality of one's writing. It is good if you need an organizational structure to display to your law school teachers so that they will think that, by displaying a talent for organization, you are similarly displaying a talent for legal acumen, understanding and ability. it is good to be able to outline if you are writing a governmental pamphlet on 'How To Obtain A Medicare Card Before You Die From Waiting For It To Arrive" -- yet it is clear that apparently none of the writers of governmental pamphlets that deal with how to do something to get something the government provides have acquainted themselves with the fine points of outlining. And, outlining MAY be important if you have a brilliant idea for the next 'iPhone' and you want to someone to bankroll you for its research and production.
But, I now have it on the excellent authority of J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins (aka James Paul Czajkowski) ... and, if I read him right, Mr. Stephen King, also, that 'outlining', per se, is mostly something that writers do to show their editors and book-publishers just enough information to persuade them to pay the writer an advance against the eventual royalties. Yet, time, after time, after time, these authors regale us with stories about book publishers, who, having given an advance based upon some outline, receive a rather much different book than the outline promised. From a logistical standpoint, for a writer, this is problematic only if the eventual 'product' of the outline sucks.
Assuming, however that the eventual book does not suck -- and let's say in Mr. Stephen King's case -- not only does the manuscript not suck, but it is fabulous, generates world-wide acclaim and bunches of money for the author and the publisher, then one might naturally want to ask what the purpose of the outline ever was, and do "real" authors use them? And, if so, why? And, if not, why not?
Well, as I understand what J.A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins all three said when they spoke at the 2018 Tucson Festival of Books in the UA Mall Tent at 1:30 p.m. on the afternoon of March 10, 2018, it turns out that, basically, books write themselves -- at least once you have an idea that is worth writing about, and you are capable of a somewhat more than rudimentary application of the standard tools of writing to that particular idea. And, of course, you can't be lazy and shiftless, because writing, like all jobs does not do itself. True, a book might 'reveal itself' to you, but YOU still have to write it down. And, in a fashion such that it makes sense to everyone else, and not just you in your dreams.
Interestingly enough -- not that I would be arrogant enough to speak for a great writer like Stephoen King -- I'd wager that Mr. King would agree with me. In fact, if you take the time to read his little book (and it is a little book) "On Writing", you'll see that, like Jance, Parker and Rollins (they are only in this order because, as the Moderator said, we are the handmaidens of that tyranny knowns in erudite circles as the Alphabet) ... ((((Hmm. In this day and age, one wonders if someone will discover a sexist, anti-feminist, sexually discriminatory original purpose for calling men "men" and women "women" ... so that, at least to a native English speaker it is more natural to follow the order that Tyrannosaurus Alphabeticus suggests when referring to "men and women".)))) ... Mr. King suggests not only that a book writes itself, but that the characters of the book will, if you listen to them, tell you what to write about them.
I must confess in the most apoplectic and embarrassed fashion that when I first read this concept in Mr. King's "On Writing", like (probably) most people I thought something like: "Oh, Sure, Mr. Rich Pants, that's easy for you to say, sitting in the lap of luxury, wealthy and famous beyond need. Yep, you say that the characters speak for themselves, but what you really mean is that you are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo innate smart and internally organized that you have a kind of 'internal outline' for your stories that emerges as you write them. But, it was there all along. And you are just (disingenously) trying to get us no-talented schnooks to realize this by putting forth some kind of metaphysical touchy-feely explanation for our abject inability to conjure up the kind of stories that are actually worth reading."
Maybe it was just me who thought something along these lines to explain my own inability to write A STORY. But, I thought, oh, sure, Stephen King (and now Jance, Parker and Rollins) 'whispers' stories from the dark nether regions of the unintelligible morse-like code which feeds into his skull from the universe, but what about the rest of us who don't have that kind of connection to the galaxy? And, is this how Shakespeare did it? How does anyone do it? How does anyone write a good story.
They find it. And, you, dear reader, will find your story. That, I think, is not really the hard part. We all have stories, and they are all fascinating in their own ways. Properly addressed, Hollywood Producers would pay every last one of us millions of dollars for the 'story of our lives', or for the 'story of how Xerxes the Croatian Giant fell in Love with and Married the President of the United States'. At least they would if we could tell them our story, tell them the story. And, to try to tie this all up, the reason that a LOT of us cannot tell a story is because of that damnable lie that we were told in school (at least in the schools I attended in the "mid-Western" State of Oklahoma, and elsewhere) that we can't write anything without, first, having a good OUTLINE!!!
A variant on this misinformation is the old saw 'If you know it, you can say what you know.' Utter bullshit. Under which I labored like a robotic drone for about the last 45 years of my life. In my freshman year in college -- I had the good fortune to be given a scholarship to a small catholic college in Los Angeles, known as Loyola-Marymount University, without which I would have had to suffer the damnable fate of living at home with my mother and younger sister, in Sunnyvale, California, while I attended De Anza junior college. Who knows, perhaps that would have been the better outcome. But, as luck would have it, I had a pretty high GPA in high school, and when, near the end of my senior year in high-school, I woke up and found myself with no place to go AWAY to to college, I panicked and applied to Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles. HOW WAS I TO KNOW that my English teacher at L-M would impart to me the singularly most damaging and stultifying mis-conception about learning and life in general? How was I to know that my impetus would cut to the quick, since, in point of fact, it was, and is, virtually impossible for me (and for most people) to "say" most of what they know? HOW WAS I TO KNOW???
But, that is what she did. And, while I don't remember her name, I do remember that she was a slight, somewhat sexy (at least to a horny 19 year old), dark haired, fair skinned maiden, who, upon reading my excuse on an exam for not having studied ("I know, but I just can't express it.") stated matter-of-factly "If you know something, you can say what you know."
I was stunned. I realized how stupid I was, because I couldn't say most of what I (thought) I knew. I was terrible as expressing myself; and I was angry as this vixen for showing me what a fraud I was. But, my anger did not turn in to moral outrage and that did not turn into a dedication to proving her wrong. It did not motivate me to do anything, except to give up and believe the idiocy of "I can't put it into words, so I don't know it."
Sheer idiocy.
Take riding a bicycle, for example. It is SUPREMELY difficult to 'explain' or 'say' how to ride a bike. And, in point of fact, parents who try to 'explain' how to ride a bike to their children usually wind up with children with broken limbs and skinned knees from falling off their bikes while trying to 'think' about how to ride it. There ARE things about riding a bike that you CAN explain, like you need to sit on the seat, you need to pedal to keep the bicycle moving, and you need to keep your balance. But, beyond these trivally truisms, learning to ride a bike will not result in you learning to explain how it is that you keep your balance like a gyroscope. Physicist can explain that, in THEIR language. But you probably cannot, and it would be a waste of your time to try.
In actual fact, some things, indeed almost all things of value, cannot be (easily) reduced to a clear and precise concatenation of agreed upon terms. It is possible, with some practice, and learning to ignore all of the psycho-babble of pseudo intellectuals masquerading as your friend to make your feel inadequate because you do not understand their brand of 'psycho-speak', to know to a certainty what the person across the table from you intends to do next (say in a negotiation to buy a car); and the fact that you cannot EXPLAIN how you know that Mary is going to ask you to marry her, does not mean that you don't know it; and it does not mean that it is 'just a hunch'. it just means that there are some forms of knowledge (indeed most of them) which are not readily susceptible to being written down in clear and precise, premise, premise, premise, conclusion style in the King's English (for example).
What this all means is really just this. Writing is about the art ... and it is an art ... of communicating the stories you find within you to others. Writing is not easy, because uncovering, and finding your own stories is not easy. Writing, like becoming a lawyer, brick-layer, mother, father, teacher, astronaut or banker, is not easy because it requires that we pay close attention to the quality of our communication to and with others.
You know how some people, no matter what they do, seem to have a certain 'style' about them that sets them apart? Cooks? Grocers? Baristas? Laundresses? Everything which can be done, can be done with style and with an attention to the quality of communication which the do-er brings to the job.
Mr. King, Mrs. Jance, Mr. Parker and Mr. Rollins are good at telling stories. And, so are you. You just need to find your story.
13 March 2018, Scott Weible
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