My Outline Is Letting Me Down

187 words.

Originally posted on my writing blog which was active from 2010 to 2018.

For my current WIP, I spent what I considered to be a fairly lengthy amount of time writing a cohesive outline of the events that would take place in the novel. I actually did it three times because I had to toss out the first two. So imagine my surprise when I reached somewhere around the 2/3rd mark of the story, consulted the outline for what comes next, and realized, “This outline is incomplete, and all wrong.”

I’m at the part where I should be moving toward resolving some things, but I seem to have left the resolutions completely off of the outline. It just sort of says, “Then the good guys win.” (Not precisely that, but something similarly vague.)

For example, Lady Elenora just had to flee from an attack on the castle by the Andalorans, and now she’s supposed to pick herself back up and go save the day. Nowhere in my outline does it say how she’s supposed to do that. A rather significant omission which I’ll need to fill in by using the tried-and-true “make it up as I go” method of writing.

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