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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39537
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39537
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

# Outlines are Absolutely Not Necessary. At All.

You are probably a discovery writer, like Stephen King. And like me, and that is not a bad thing.

Check out this advice: [Six Secrets of Writing a Novel without an Outline](http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/6-secrets-of-writing-a-novel-without-an-outline). Or this, from NY Book Editors: [Planning to Outline Your Novel? Don't.](https://nybookeditors.com/2013/09/outlining/) Which contains many reasons why discovery writing is better. Or this one, [Why Discovery Writing Is The Best Writing Method Ever](http://nathanmajor.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-discovery-writing-is-best-writing.html), which contains even more reasons.

Which type of writer you are doesn't seem much of a choice; for me, if I outline a story I am pretty much done with it. I feel I have expended all my creativity on that, told the story, and I'm done with it. Writing out all the details then feels like a chore, the little creativity it affords is not enough to keep me interested in plodding through it.

With discovery writing, I do write a great deal I end up discarding or cutting, when I find the twists and ending I also have to do many more edits of the first draft. My foreshadowing has to be done after the fact, I read through and find places where it will seem natural (there are always a few). I adhere to the three act structure **after the fact** , meaning I identify where the key turning points are in the story and adjust the length of each act to fall where it should, it is what readers intuitively desire in a good story. You really have to embrace the mantra of "kill your darlings", cutting out scenes or characters you loved when you wrote them, or expositions you thought were going somewhere, that really just don't have a good place in the final plot and story.

This is NOT "efficient" in terms of knocking out a novel in three months; mine take seven or eight to finish. Forever abandon the thought you will not write a chapter that doesn't get published, or anything like that.

But for me it creates stories **_I love, and loved writing._** Plodding through an outline will never do that for me. That is just a chore every day, while discovery writing is an adventure every day, exploring new territory and puzzling out what each of my characters -- and they feel like real people to me -- would actually do next to reach their goals. How they would react. How they would feel. That's enormous fun, and it is why I enjoy writing.

Original score: 5