Direction Unknown: What to Do When You Lose Your Way
By Matthew Norman | April 5, 2024 |
Back in March 2020, as we collectively sprayed our groceries with Clorox, I wrote an essay for my friends here at Writer Unboxed called “Confessions of a Former Anti-Outliner” in which I presented my case for why outlining novels before writing them is just about the greatest thing ever. In the four years and two outlined novels since, I’ve become even more self-righteous on the subject. As far as I’m concerned you lawless hooligans who write by the seat of your pants should be sent to some sort of minimum-security book prison.
Recently, though, something unexpected happened that caused me to question my hardline stance on pre-planning books: as I wrote the first draft of my sixth novel, my outline fell apart before my very eyes.
While I haven’t ultimately changed my position on the benefits of literary roadmaps, being led so far astray by my own has reminded me that works in progress are incredibly delicate things. Whether you’re a tried-and-true outliner like me, a sticky note aficionado, a note card junkie, or just some lunatic who guzzles caffeine and wings it, our best laid plans are often imperfect, and eventually you’re going to find yourself off course and plunged directly into chaos.
Here’s what you can do when that happens. Oh, and I’ll do my best to keep this driving analogy going for as long as I can.
Heed the Warning Signs
Back to the delicate thing. Works in progress are essentially unreliable vehicles held together by little more than duct tape and goodwill, so little, obvious problems will pop up and a daily basis. Don’t worry, you can deal with those in revision. The large-scale issues, though—the structural problems that you can’t just speed right by—often reveal themselves more subtly. In my experience, warning signs for hazards like these often manifest themselves as nagging little voices in my head. If you’ve been at this for a while, I bet you have a few of those voices, too. While they can often be the enemy of progress, if your voices keep saying the same things over and over, maybe you should turn the car stereo down and give them a listen.
In my case, for Novel #6, every time I sat down to work, my voices would say, “You’re waiting too long to introduce Dom and Meredith, you know.” (For context, Dom and Meredith are good-looking pretend people whose fictional existences hinge on preventing my male and female leads from getting together.)
“Shut up,” I’d reply. “I’ve got this all planned out. I wrote an outline. I printed it out and everything. See?”
My voices thought that was hilarious. “Oh, and by the way,” they said, “your order of events doesn’t make any sense. Where, exactly, did you learn to write books?”
Stop the Car!
I highly recommend avoiding the authorly impulse to try to solve your problems by continuing to furiously write in the wrong direction. When you’ve officially lost your way, it’s time to pull over. With your car idling and the A/C blasting, make a list—either literally or just in your head—of all the things those voices have been telling you. Yeah, they’re nagging, but sometimes they make some good points.
Find a Rest Stop and Hope They Have a Bar
I’m kidding about the bar thing. I’m mostly kidding about the bar thing. Once you’ve identified what’s wrong, give yourself a break. At the risk of sounding overly positive in a stressful situation—damn near upbeat, even—unscheduled work stoppages are often exactly what you need to refocus and move forward. So, for the sake of your project, do anything other than write. Seriously, anything. Go for a walk. See a movie in an actual theater. Steal your neighbor’s dog and go on an adventure. Whatever. When you give the writer part of your brain time away from having to relentlessly produce prose, it’ll get busy finding creative ways to get you back on the right course. Some of my best writing revelations have occurred when I wasn’t actually writing.
Review How You Got Here
After you’ve taken your little break and returned your neighbor’s dog, you may find yourself tempted by another authorly impulse: the urge to open a new document and simply start over. Don’t do that, particularly if you’re on a deadline. If you got lost halfway to California, you wouldn’t drive all the way back to Baltimore and start over, right?
Instead, scroll to the beginning of your draft and start reading. And I don’t mean read like a writer. This is no time to suffer over art and syntax. Here, you should read like an actual reader would, with an eye toward story, plot, and momentum. As you move along through your document, mark places along the way where you see opportunities to fix things. For non-outliners, this might be tough, but keep a running log, complete with pages numbers and some quick notes to yourself. Then, when you’re done rereading, go back through your list, execute those fixes in your draft, and cross the completed items off. As artless as it may sound, there’s nothing more satisfying than a completed to-do list.
Going through my own troubled work in progress, I was quickly able to identify spots early in my draft where I could introduce Dom and Meredith. And, recharged and eyes fresh, I found clarity in the mess of my story’s chronology and reordered things appropriately. Finally, after so much doubt and struggle, my path forward was clear.
Hit the Road Again
With the voices in your head silenced (temporarily, at least) and all those draft-ruining problems finally in your rearview mirror, you’re ready to hit the road again. Buckle up, and good luck!
- Do you believe in fixing big work-in-progress problems as you go, or do you prefer to wait until the next draft?
- Name a time when you’ve had to fix something major in a WIP. Did you know it was a problem all along, or did you realize it suddenly?
- Do you agree that unscheduled work stoppages can be helpful, or are they more likely to hurt you?
- If you’re an outliner, has your roadmap ever led you off a cliff? Do tell.
- Does sending non-outliners to a minimum-security book prison sound too harsh? I’m flexible on that.
Matthew Norman is the author of five novels. His latest, Charm City Rocks, is out now from Dell. His debut novel, Domestic Violets, was nominated in the Best Humor Category at the 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards, and his second novel, We’re All Damaged, was an Amazon bestseller. His upcoming novel, Grace & Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon, will be out in October. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Baltimore and holds an MFA from George Mason University.
[coffee]
I guess I’m headed to book prison. I recently finished manuscript #3 and it’s out with beta readers. No outlines. I’ve tried to outline. I really have. Tried the Inside Outline. Even bought a cork board, index cards, and a rainbow of colored markers. It was a no-go. I do try to create short bullet points of the timeline when I get about halfway through and realize that “Hey she can’t be 8 months pregnant when she just took the pregnancy test yesterday.” That sort of stuff. I’ve come to (more or less) accept that this is my process. Maybe one of these days I’ll convert and proselytize about the virtues of outlining, but right now I’m a hard core pantser. Thanks for your perspective. Made me smile, like always.
Think how much writing you’ll get done in book jail!
Me too, hard-core pantser. I’ve tried outlining, but nobody listened. And I too have “come to (more or less accept that this is my process.” That said, I really appreciate the reminder to listen to the voices telling me there’s a problem, rather than blast the stereo and just keep going.
Hello Matthew. Thank you for your witty post. It confirms that serious matters don’t need to be treated with school-marm severity. After all, how to approach novel-writing, specifically how to deal with a nagging sense of Big Trouble is definitely serious business. At least around here.
To glom onto your driving idea, I suffer from a form of what’s meant in the E.L.Doctorow comment quoted so often: writing a novel is like driving at night. I can see ahead, but only as far as what’s revealed by my headlights. Same for me. Tensed for the red deer waiting to bound out (crappy word choice, clumsy syntax, etc), I will wave off the nagging little voice whispering that the last pothole screwed up my wheel alignment.
That’s why I’m a big booster of gun-for-hire editors. In several instances, they have revealed to me what was in plain view for them, but lost in the mist for me. Oh, right, I have been nattering on for quite a few pages about What Happened Back Then. That’s why I didn’t notice how many people good enough to spend their time reading what I wrote are slumped over on the couch.
Definitely, though, the roadside tavern remains an important resource. Thanks again.
Hey, Barry. Absolutely. Editors are such a wonderful part of the process. I’d be lost without mine.
Thank you, Matt, for sharing your experience about this–your advice seems perfect (well, maybe not the stuff about my neighbor’s dog) for me and my work right now!
Good luck, Thomas!
I have done it all—pantsing, rough outline, detailed scene matrix outlining where each character is scene-by-scene, and what I’m doing now—chapter synopses that get modified as I go along.
While the scene matrix helped give me a perspective about pacing, it’s really intense and a lot of work. I still ended up having to revise it. However, it helped install a sense of what needs to happen when and where in the word count—I need to finish laying out the setup by 30k or so words, make things more intense for the characters from 30k-60k words, then work toward the conclusion and resolution (plus setup for the next book if it’s a series) in the final 60k-90k or so set of words.
These days I write brief chapter synopses and revise as I go along, using strikethrough for cut material so that I can use it later if needed. That somewhat helps with continuity.
Does it work? Well, no one complains about the pacing of my books in what limited reviews I seem to be getting. Other things—yeah. Pacing—no.
Hey, Joyce. I didn’t mention it in my post, but after I got my latest back on track, I created a running plot summary made up of one-sentence plot descriptors. It helped me keep track of what was going on. I found it helpful and will probably do it for the next one, too.
HA! I was literally driving when I realized that the character who was minor in the outline actually WAS the story. Later, I made notes for what needed to happen with her in the first half of the book and kept going as if I’d already made all those changes — I had some serious deadline pressure. When I got to the end and started over, reading what I’d written and making a revision plan, I discovered that the changes were not all that major or hard to make. It was as if my subconscious had known all along that Maddie and her relationship to Pepper, my series sleuth, was the heart of the story. It’s one of my favorites in the series, for the exploration of their friendship and for what it taught me about “the freakout in the middle.”
Hey, Leslie. Yeah, it’s amazing how many revelations come to writers while they’re driving. There must be something to that–like a shutting off of a certain part of the brain activates another part. I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. Ha. But, yeah, definitely. Keep driving!
Thanks, Matt. Good advice and VERY reassuring for someone who frequently loses her way!
I think if I outlined a story completely, I’d just file it and move on to the next book. It makes no sense from a literary or commercial point of view, but finding my way down that strange highway at night (thank you, Barry) is part of the deal. I know what must happen at the end of this particular story—and what *cannot* happen in the meantime, because it’s third in a trilogy. (As Blake Snyder said about the sequals to Die Hard, “You can’t save your wife twice.”)
Anyway, I’d like to go drive on some other damn road for a change, but in the meantime I just keep squinting down the road, watching for signs.
OK, sequels.
Fair point, Michael. I once heard or read (can’t remember which) John Irving discussing outlining. He often spends a year or more outlining his books. He said that getting the plot figured out in epic detail allows him to focus on language and character while writing. I found that interesting. While I have absolutely never spent a year + on outlining, I do find that having a map in front of me helps me dig in on prose and character. Whatever works, though, right? As another famous John said (Lennon)…whatever gets you through the night.
Off to book prison I will go, I guess. I start driving with nothing but a character and a vague idea where I might go. It gets a bit clearer after some miles. At that point I do stop and start sketching a very rough map. And off I go again. Next stop: map gets more detailed. And so on. And yes, I make detours and find funny little villages that won’t ever appear in the book/map, but that’s part of the process. If I needed to outline I probably would not write the book at all. I need to find the story on the way. I like it that way, and revisions are fun too….
I admire your ability to follow an outline. Tried to outline several times and ended up blowing the outline up by chapter three at the latest. I let my characters take me on the journey and follow along, making sure they have enough bad things happening and they are learning what they need to learn. I write a line for what I want to happen in each chapter, but those are subject to change. I’d be off to prison too, since outlines just don’t work well unless you want stock characters, cliches, boring conversations and cookie cutter action.
There will be no fixing of big problems – in a mainstream trilogy of probably over a half-millions words – except as we go. It’s planned as a unit, roughly, and then in exaggeratedly detailed outline for each book, and when it’s ready, that third of the story gets done one scene at a time, no changes except in the present scene (and a really rare insertion of some minor form of foreshadowing in a previous scene) because the outline is where the work is done, and the writing is a scene at a time and don’t look back.
NOBODY does this. But I can only work linearly, it’s coming along very nicely, and I’ve published two volumes and am working the same way on the third.
Intricate DEMANDS planning. The more complex the plot, the more sure the author has to be that it’s all going to connect properly at the end, and, as Donald Maass has noted, the more words will have to be written to make SURE it all makes sense. Impossible made plausible takes WORK. Space. Time. Words.
And then, magically, it makes sense – and the joy of this method is that the writing is a pleasure without too many detours and wasted words. Because we know exactly where we’re going – but the reader doesn’t.
The damaged brain from chronic illness may be why I have to do it this way, but I love what comes out.
Hi, Alicia. I mentioned him in another comment above, but your process sounds like John Irving’s. This makes sense, as his books have so much going on. Good luck!
Well, Matthew, to answer your questions…
I am a natural-born pantser. I discovered early on in my writing journey that I can’t tell the story in advance. I have to discover it as I go. My brain only wants to tell a story once and would refuse to cooperate with writing one already told. And an outline or synopsis qualified as already told.
I have never taken the story off a cliff. I avoid doing that by writing slowly, always looking back over my shoulder to make sure that I’m writing is a natural consequence of what came before. Even so, I do sometimes inadvertently drive it off the road. But I never get far before the nagging little voice says, “Wrong way,” though it’s rarely helpful about telling me why it’s the wrong way. But I go back to the last place when I knew it was right (usually no farther than one scene or one chapter) and try a different route.
I rely on my conscious and unconscious brain to get me to the right ending. Since what I’m writing is a complex, intricately braided, multi-POV saga, that takes a lot of trust in my process, but it has never let me down yet.
Yes, stoppages (unplanned or otherwise) can prove to be helpful. Sometimes just getting up from the chair and trudging off to do some chores can work magic. Nothing like having the hands busy and the brain free to inspire some creative story jujitsu.
Hey, Beth. I love that…”the last place when I knew it was right.” That’s always a nice place, I’ve found. Good luck!
Flexibility works!
Indeed it does. I like to outline, but then be very bendy as needed.
I’m a lawless hooligan who writes by the seat of my pants. I’ve written nonfiction, but I’m working on my first novel now. Because I have eight (grown) children, flying by the seat of my pants was a means of survival, and flexibility was always necessary.
Outlining makes me nervous, but I also get nervous when I’m ending a scene and don’t know where I’m going next. My critique group is reading The Emotional Craft of Fiction. Yesterday when I was stuck, I read the next chapter and knew what I needed to write next.
Sometimes when I’m not feeling it, I use child psychology on myself: I tell myself to take the weekend off (forced break) and then I’m extra eager to get back at it. ;)
“Works in progress are essentially unreliable vehicles held together by little more than duct tape and goodwill,…” This is the line that sticks with me most relentlessly in this wonderfully helpful article. You are so specific. So concrete and step-by-by-step. Thank you for that. Back at the dawn of time – when I was still a book editor, then a literary agent, indulging my writing jones on the side – I was the queen of the synopsis. Wrote articles about it. Handed out handouts by the carload. Then my best-selling client told me her story-planning secret. She called it “flying into the mist.” E.L.Doctorow uses a similar analogy involving car headlights. Anyway, my client, who wrote absolutely amazing fiction, told me she simply took off and flew into the mist, not to be confused with flying into the dark with no vision of the peripheral story landscape at all. What struck me most about her description of her process was how much she obviously enjoyed it, loved it in fact. So, I tried it, and also loved it, and it worked for me – until it didn’t. That stalled manuscript still lurks in a computer file somewhere, as well as at the disgruntled side of my brain. Conclusion. Somewhere between queen of the synopsis and flying into mist lies the practice that will work for me, and also give me creative joy. I shall extract and save a copy of this article as a roadmap to my continuing quest. Thanks, and Keep on Writing Whatever May Occur. Alice
Thanks! One of my professors in grad school talked about the E.L. Doctorow thing often. If I remember correctly, all you can see is what’s directly ahead of you–what your headlights reveal. As you revise and revise and revise, the sun comes up more and more and more, and you’re able to see what’s around you. I like that idea a lot, and there’s so much truth to it. For me, outlines are a way to kind of trick the sun into coming up a little earlier in the process. Onward we go!