Outlining the climax made me lose interest in writing the actual story
I am a discovery writer. I wrote more than 50% of my first novel's first draft.
I got really confuse about some aspects of writing, so I took a break and analysed my plot. I've started developing my world much better and made an outline for the remaining story. But once I finished it, I couldn't start writing the remaining portion. I feel like that I have already completed the task with the outline, so I'm struggling finding the will to write out the story.
How can I overcome this issue?
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4 answers
The only way to resolve it is to write.
I'm a discovery writer too. I get excitement from just "imagining" how things could go, how the world might be, and how the character should react. Did you notice? I used verbs in conditional form.
That's because - no matter what your brain tells you - a story isn't done until you write it. It doesn't matter if you outlined the next 50 scenes perfectly in your head: if you don't write, they didn't happen. So put aside your outline for a moment, decide what you should write next, and start typing. As you write, allow yourself to "discover" new things. Sure, you have everything planned out; but maybe as you are putting your ideas on paper you'll find better solutions.
A discovery writer needs, in my opinion, to treat every outline as a "vague guideline". Sure, you know what the ending might be, but you need to trust your insticts as you write and let it happen in a different way, if that what's feels right.
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This is a presumption, but my guess is that you have lost interest because there is no drama in your outline. The peril of outlining is that it causes you to focus on events. Events are not dramatic in themselves. There is no drama in a set of turn by turn directions, for instance. They will get you to your intended destination, but unless something exciting or interesting or disastrous happens along the way, it is not going to make for great dinner-table conversation.
And if your outline is indeed just a set of turn-by-turn directions to get your plot to its intended destination, you are not likely to feel much like writing it down, because it is all there already. There is no drama, and therefore nothing to get interested in writing.
Plots exist to create drama, to force the protagonist into situations where they have to make tough choices. If your plotting gets ahead of your sense of drama, it is going to create an outline that is not interesting enough to expand into a story.
If you are at the 50% mark, you should (by the numbers) be right at the heart of the drama. Are you? If not, the problem probably does not lie in your outline for the second half but in your written-out first half. I don't think it is terribly unusual for writers to get half-way through a novel and realize that it lacks drama. If the drama is not palpable at the mid point, then there is something wrong in the first half and writing the second half is not likely to be appealing.
So, look for the drama. Look for the hard life-altering decisions you hero has to make. Find the drama and the desire to write should return.
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I am a discovery writer, I have been for many years, and I complete stories.
Scrap your outline.
Most discovery writers (including me) have struggled with what you are talking about; finding the climax, resolving the character arcs, dead-end "mysteries" that we could never figure out.
The solution to that is simple, but it is NOT outlining. For a discovery writer, outlining kills your characters. It turns them into machines that can't make decisions, and you feel you are forcing their emotions upon them.
I think you feel like you finished the story because you (as the author) have no more choice in how the story goes, your characters are no longer fluid, you are no longer excited to see what they will do, or what they will encounter. You have become a typist, instead of a story teller.
The solution to finishing books as a story teller is to have a logical conclusion for the story from the beginning. As an example, consider a film like Independence Day, which I did not write. The premise is aliens attack Earth, and we can't beat their tech. The final solution is we infect their systems with a computer virus, thereby defeating their tech, so our military can defeat them.
That is all a discovery writer should need to write the story, a main problem, and its solution. I do not consider this an outline, I consider it a direction to write in, and a provisional direction at that: If I think of a better ending, and I love it, I'll write toward that, even if I have to revise the book-so-far to some extent.
If while I am writing, my characters do something that would preclude that ending, I have to come up with a better ending right then, still consistent with what has happened, or within the realm of revision for what has happened. I don't want to rewrite ten chapters (although Stephen King, also a discovery writer, once scrapped something like a few hundred pages to save The Stand).
Revision is part of discovery writing, to create a coherent whole out of your wanderings. If character actions make the provisional ending illogical or dumb or impossible, then go back and find something else plausible for the characters to do that doesn't ruin the ending. Save a backup, in case you have lines you loved that might be re-used, but cut and start over. Or find a different ending that would work, a better ending, and revise what you need, throughout the book so far, so the better ending fits.
I do the same thing for a few other important "endings" in the book; I usually have a love story as a subplot in my books, a love story with an obstacle. I decide some provisional ending for that story too, a note on how their obstacle might be overcome, and they get together. If I introduce a mystery, I keep a note on how to solve it. I don't write any of the details, just a plausible notion of how it can be done; a direction to write in.
Scrap your outline. Put it aside, forget it, free your characters. Whatever you devised for the various endings, maybe keep them as notes, a direction to write in, but not too many of them.
Go back and let your characters be free, to make their choices in the moment like real people, to develop their plans on the fly, react and feel on the fly. Both villains and heroes. Let Jack be surprised when the present circumstances warrant surprise, don't try to force it on him. Where discovery writers shine is precisely that, what the characters do, say, think and feel seems organic and natural, it flows, because the writer has that moment in his head as he invents every line and action.
Sometimes I think of this as a football game; American version or European: The goal in every game is the same: You have to get from a starting point to the end of the field, against opposition. But the path to the goal is completely different every time. Different setbacks, mistakes and victories. No two games are ever the same.
Take your characters, and play a new game. Even if your final goal is the same, you don't have to get there exactly the same way as you outlined. Your outline found A story, one game. Screw up your outline with adversity, you can always add that: A fumbled ball is recovered by the opposition, a player falls and breaks an arm. It doesn't have to be a villain, it can be an environmental problem; a fire or storm or accident. A wild animal. They've run out of food and water. They encounter a mountain or river they can't cross, screwing up their timeline.
Kick your hero in the face and make yourself write a different game for them. Even if your note on how to resolve the main conflict stays exactly the same, let them react to different circumstances on the fly, make new plans. You need to give them new life so you are looking forward to seeing what they do when you sit down to write, and looking forward to figuring it out.
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Your brain is convinced it's done with the first draft, which means it's time to start the second draft on the story cleaning up everything and filling up any missing details as needed. Which is a new task and one that you have to do regardless of how complete the first draft is. Yours just happens to be pretty barebones in the second half, but that's ok, each pass you make the novel more complete until it really is.
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