I finally ditched detailed outlines for freewriting and it saved my story

I used to spend 3 hours planning every scene of my fantasy novel before writing a single word. Then I got stuck on a chapter about a market brawl in chapter 4 and stared at a blank page for two days straight. A friend in my writing group told me to just write the messy version and fix it later. So I tried freewriting that scene in 15 minutes, and it came out way better than my outlines ever did. Now I only sketch 2 or 3 bullet points per chapter and let the characters drive the rest. Anyone else find that overplanning kills your flow?

2 comments

2 Comments

amyr574d ago

I read somewhere that our brains actually write better when we're not overthinking it, like how improv scenes work better than scripted ones. Glad the market brawl scene came out good for you.

willow_robinson3d ago

Oh wait, wait, WAIT. I have to stop right there because you just said 'our brains write better when we're not overthinking it' and that hits me like a ton of bricks. I've been struggling with this exact thing for weeks now, stuck on a single scene because I keep second guessing every word. But you're totally right about the improv thing too, I did theater in high school and the best scenes were always the ones where we just went with it instead of planning every move. Maybe I need to stop treating my writing like a blueprint and start treating it more like jazz or something, just see where it takes me.