On Outlining, Young Readers, and Undercover: A Blogger's Cocktail

All right, so. I had a little blog something to say about outlining earlier today. I said—nay, I announced!—that I don't rely on this time-honored tool in my own writing process. Which is to say only that the outline does not work for me, but it works impeccably for others.

I don't use outlines because I'm weird. C'est tout. Because (for me) the great pleasure of writing is finding out, getting shanked by surprise, stretching toward unanticipated connections. I feel boxed in and unhappy in the presence of an outline. I need to be allowed off the path. I need to stray awhile, go hunt down some details, find out what that character really thinks, which is tied to who that character really is, which is not something I will find in an outline. Outlines presuppose. They rein things in. They don't yield to me, and I need so much room. (Gosh, I'm demanding. Gosh, who can live with me, really?)

I'm writing toward meaning. I'm inside a mood. I know what I want a book to achieve, how I want one of my books to make a reader feel, what my book is remembering or honoring or sacrificing. Sometimes plot (so well facilitated by an outline) is a means to that end, but not always, at least not for me.

So what do I have, if not an outline, when I write? I have the landscape defined—the room with its deflated balloon or the olive groves or the outside balcony of the Main Exhibition Hall. I have the biographies of my characters. I have the sound of the last sentence in my head. I have an overriding idea about narrative choreography—the pitch points, the quiet stretch, the crescendo, the rattled keys. Beyond that, I let the book become itself. I am eager, every day, to go down and meet it. To learn where it might take me.

Writers who have achieved the sorts of things I can only dream of achieving use outlines. I'm not suggesting that my process is better than theirs. It just is what it is, and I'm too old now to change it. Too weird, but I think I've noted that.

All right, enough on this. Last Sunday, as I've mentioned, I met with a number of 13-year-old readers and their moms and we talked for several hours about Undercover. It was an interesting exchange, and I learned a lot (is there room for subtlety in novels? must we like each character?). Throughout this week I've learned even more from young writer/readers. I've learned from Maya and Priya and also The Curly Q and AyeCaptain about what makes a book work, or not.

Curly Q and Aye Captain just reviewed Undercover and had some intriguing and helpful things to say. I am, as always, so very grateful for the conversation that percolates here. For the enthusiastic embrace of the idea that there's a book out there waiting for us all.