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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38062
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38062
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

# Yes, you should be able to 'feel' your outline.

I admit I don't really outline in writing, although I do have well defined characters and a problem in my head before I begin writing, and I do feel the emotions of my characters in scenes before I write them.

I think if your goal is to evoke emotions, you should really be outlining the emotional journey of your characters as part-and-parcel of the plot. The plot scenes should _serve_ this emotional journey, if Jack and Jill are to fall in love, become sexual partners, get married, get pregnant, and you plan to kill one of them in a robbery or something: You should be not only plotting what happens in each chapter, but choosing your scenes to support the emotional journey, too. And their jobs, and the period and environment, etc. What is Jack's job that he might be killed in a robbery? A bank manager, perhaps? In what scene do they meet? Why are they single? How do they feel all along the way?

Those feelings should be detailed IN the outline, and by thinking about these feelings, you will feel them during the outline. You will feel them stronger when you write the scenes, but if you don't feel them at all during the outline, then they are likely implausible or inappropriate (e.g. forced) emotions.

If you outline the emotional journey along with the plot, it will help you pick resonating settings and plot points that emphasize and echo the emotional state. For example, after a first meeting, the emotional state should be intrigue, curiosity about this new person. A desire to explore (not necessarily sexually just yet), to get to know somebody better.

So, what is a good setting that suggests or encourages exploration? Can we put them in it, someplace they can walk about, that they haven't been before?

Or what is a good job task to suggest or encourage exploration? Maybe Jack or Jill (whomever you follow) can have that as part of their job to talk about, some successful work-related research or exploration.

Your story may not be a love story; that's fine. The point is, to evoke strong emotions in your readers, you must build up to them with an emotional journey. Simple sledge-hammers like their child dying in the first scene tend to fall flat, we don't know the characters very well, the result is too cliché, the manipulation too obvious. The emotions must have an arc, and that should be planned, _along_ with the plot, characters, and setting that support the emotional arc. Then we DO know the characters, feel like they are real, so when you pull the ripcord on the big scene, we empathize and sympathize with them, we feel that emotion. If you outline the emotions, then you should feel them to a good extent in the outline, or they aren't working.

Original score: 5