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The Best Writing Advice I Ever Ignored Was My Own
And why it hasn’t hurt me
For years, I told beginning writers to outline their novels.
I still do.
The thing is, I don’t always follow that advice myself anymore. But that doesn’t mean I think outlining is bad advice. Quite the opposite.
In my previous post, I shared my evolution of moving from a pantser to an outliner, and back to a very organized pantser. My goal here is to share why outlining can be incredibly helpful and when you should consider using it in your own writing.
In my last post, I shared that I didn’t organically decide to begin outlining my novels. I was “forced” to by an editor who wanted me to submit an outline. That led me to read a lot more about outlining novels and plotting before writing. Thus began a many-year journey of becoming a different kind of writer.
I also shared that this change came at a good time in my development as a writer, because it taught me a lot about novel structure.
And this is what I’d like you to take away from my experience: the kind of structure a writer needs changes as the writer develops.
When I was less experienced, the outline provided the story structure for me. Before I wrote any part of the novel, I…
