I’m often asked if I’m someone who outlines or just jumps right into writing a story (or novel) to see where it goes. As a overplanning Virgo the unsurprising answer is: I outline. HOWEVER, what I frame in My Writing Habits & Practices is that I started doing something I call Bright Spots.
What I realized from participating in generative workshops while I’m working on projects was that there were certain moments or definitive scenes in longer projects that were already baked into my head. Those scenes existed prior to the outline being finalized. They were moments that the story would be centered around. In workshops, some of those scenes would come to life (they would happen to align with the prompt, allowing for a chance for the moment to come to life). The scenes would later weave seamlessly into the story (with a few revisions or edits).
This was also when I noticed that as I wrote in linear order that certain scenes I didn’t full actualize or understand were taking significantly longer to write, as I struggled to get to the scenes I was excited about. As I considered this and even the idea of writing components of a story out of order, I began to challenge myself to explore these scenes—or bright spots in the narrative that I already saw—as opportunities to flesh these out first, write them, and then to piece together moments before and after in order to expand on the story.
In working on this novel, I’ve evolved my outline process as well – it’s a novel-told-in-stories, so each chapter almost feels like a short story that’s interwoven into a larger narrative. SO, beyond outlining, I have a set of questions that interrogate the primary character, their drives, the heart of their story, why it’s being told (and told now), the point of view, the secondary character, the scenes, and eventually get to the outline of the story. But before this process has even started, I’ll have scenes already crafted (either from workshops or just as a pre-outlining process) that I’ve often already crafted for the central character.
(For longer works, I will have mapped out key things with high-level story beats—which is… also an outline lol but for this novel-told-in-stories, there’s concepts or focal points that follows the flow of the novel, but I’ll have big things missing like “who is the character of focus?” or “what city will this be set in?” or “how will this transition to the next chapter” – but for a traditional short story, I’ve taken prompts or concepts and started writing those bright spots ahead of the detailed outline, which changes, which shifts, which may even have scenes cut.)
But as a challenge to folks, especially us outline-heavy writers, would be to think about what you already know about the story you want to tell, but to write that scene that ‘s already formed in your head first. Write it. See what it offers you. And see how that shifts your outline process or even writing the piece overall. Break some of the linear approaches we’ve been taught, listen to your intuition, and write those bright spots that are already burning inside of you.