Hi. When plotting, what do you do? Option one or two for example Option 1- 1.Jim lost pencil 2.Jim found pencil OR Option 2- 1.Jim loses pencil 2. looks around house 3. calls girlfriend. she has pencil. 4. Jim found pencil and is happy. Personally, i prefer option one, and let my mind creatively figure the rest out as we go. Obviously this requires more editing, but, I find that my writing will be stale if I plan out too much. Give us your thoughts.
I outline more like option 2, but the outline is always changing depending on what direction the writing actually takes. I'm okay with having to re-write the outline over and over though, because it helps me keep the ideas straight.
Option 2, but that's because I have a couple subplots that connect and it'd be too complicated if I didn't sort it all out.
You can outline "creatively" if you're in the right mindset. I treat my outlines as a watered down version of a first draft which means they are much more detailed than both options you've given us. I make notes of anything that I feel is relevant to the scene: scents, objects, key dialogue, body language, expressions, etc.
option two. And now I'm going to start writing a novel which I have outlined reeeally carefully, more than usual (I used to leave some things for my creativity to work out while writing but this one I've planned down to every scene) which is going to be interesting. Will it still feel as creative as usual? Will it work better or worse? What will the end result be like? I'm going to find that out.
Depends. If it was the pencil situation, it would be: 1)Jim lost pencil. 2)Jim found pencil However, in another situation, it would be: 1)Sauron loses his Penultimate Sword of Time to Mary Sue in an epic duel 2)Sauron captures Chuck Norris with his army of ghouls and tortures him. 3)Chuck Norris reveals Mary Sue's weakness. 4)Sauron extensively plots out Mary Sue's possible path to rescue her friends from the Bat-God Wingdude. 5)Sauron tracks down Mary Sue 6)A side character tries to assassinate him 7)He gets off course and Mary Sue goes to another location. 8)Angry, he replots his course 9)After facing many traps, he finds her in the middle of the Cave of Pointless Traps. 10)Epic confrontation 11)Sauron gets his sword back, but it's shattered This has more steps because it's IMPORTANT, unlike Jim's pencil(of course, assuming it's not magical or a MacGuffin). Furthermore, it opens up an opportunity for a second mini-arc in which Sauron has to fight his way into the abandoned mithril mines and get a ton of mithril, find his exit blocked due to a cave-in, take a secret tunnel leading into the Dark, Doomed, Deadly Forest, where he has to fight his way out and sneak into the elven city Gazillionrivers so that he can exchange his Bone Dragon artifact with the best swordsmith in all the land in return for said swordsmith mending the sword. Which starts another arc in which Bounty Hunter Bob the Sixty-Ninth confronts Sauron for the Bone Dragon, only to find that he gave it away... In fact, a novel is just a series of these sort of arcs.
Most of the time I don't do either. I have a basic idea in my head where the story is going and then just write. I make an outline adding scenes after they are written. My outlines are more to help me when I need to go back and find something not to help guide where the story is going.
