Overplanning Your Novel

I got stuck in a rut like that myself last year. See, my problem has always been that I didn’t plan enough, and I’d get halfway through my draft and have no idea where I was going. So I started planning, and I kept planning, and planning, terrified that if I didn’t have a solid plan before I started writing, I would wind up in the same boat I was before. But it was getting more difficult to visualize the complete story with nothing but detailed scene notes and fantasies of what crucial plot points would look like. I was lamenting my frustrations to a writing friend one day, and she offered me a wise suggestion. Why don’t you just start writing it anyway?

This can be overwhelming advice. Especially when we writers have a penchant for ignoring one of the most crucial parts of the outline - the beginning. Where does the story start? What is my character doing? Is the villain already after her, and if so, how do I show that? How much do I explain? How can I “start writing,” if I don’t even know how or where to start?

Not to mention, that first scene in some ways is supporting the entire story. Because without a good first scene, the rest doesn’t really matter. That first scene leaves an impression, and it’s often the reason some readers stop or continue a book. 

I don’t say all this to put extra pressure on anyone. I’m just saying that we’ve all been there with that first scene, and it can often stop us from ever moving forward. 

So when she told me I should just start writing anyway, I looked at my outline. And yes, it had holes, and yes the climax was kind of fuzzy, and hell yes the backstory wasn’t completely clear. But when I read through what I had, I realized I actually did have several consecutive scenes that made up a fairly big chunk of the novel. I may not have known exactly what led to this chunk of scenes, or even what came after, but I estimated that I probably had a month’s worth of writing material to keep me occupied. 

I picked a scene in the middle of my outline, and I wrote it. When that scene was finished, I continued to the next scene, and so on. If I had no idea what the next scene would be, or if I was simply frustrated with it, I’d consult my outline, find a new scene, and jump to it. 

That’s the beauty of having any kind of outline - you no longer have to write in order. The outline helps your brain understand approximately where these scenes will go in the finished product, and, when applicable, what scenes will come in between two scenes that you’re currently writing.  

And somehow it kind of worked, which surprised me. I spent the entirety of NaNoWriMo writing random scenes from my novel, completely out of order, and those written scenes acted like magical story cement, filling in many of the cracks and holes in my plot. The backstory tightened up to accommodate plot twists I hadn’t planned until I was writing them, and as I spent more time with the characters, my excitement for the climax grew, and I felt more invested in working it out. And most importantly, that opening scene started to become clearer.

In conclusion…

After that self indulgent speech, let me bring it all together for you. Planning is great. Planning helps our project grow and evolve. It helps us understand where it’s going and why we’re writing it. Without a good plan in place, our writing can be aimless and wandering, and the story might never reach a logical and cohesive conclusion. And yet..

Writing is also great. Writing helps our project grow and evolve. It helps us understand where it’s going and why we’re writing it. Without writing, our plan is just a plan, and it will never become a story. 

If you’re concerned that you’re over planning, stop yourself. Right now. Look at what you have. Count how many detailed scenes you have figured out, and then estimate how long it might take you to write them all. A week? A month? Two months? Give yourself a deadline, and then work on writing those scenes before your deadline. I promise you, you will end up with at least one scene that wasn’t in the outline. And sometimes one scene is enough to completely change your thinking and affect the way you move forward with your planning. 

And of course, once you hit that deadline, take a moment to refresh. Update your outline, tidy it up, delete scenes, add scenes, and then go from there. Hopefully the time you spent writing will leave you in a much more optimistic place than you are right now. 

Good luck!

-Rebekah

For some more insight, I highly recommend @theticklishpear‘s post on World-Builder’s Syndrome….and really any other post you find in their series archive.