Why You Don't Need an Outline to Write Your Novel

I love writers' workshops. I can feel an addiction coming on.

Sometimes you get advice you don't agree with. But a novice novelist shouldn't be too hasty to eschew the learned words of more seasoned writers. Still, after you've published at least one book, I believe you can pick and choose without guilt. What works, what doesn't? It's (obviously) highly individual.

I'm here to talk about THE OUTLINE [sound three dramatic notes denoting something important is coming: Dum Dum DUMMMM].

Many live and die by their outline. And it's really, really crucial to craft a well-considered one if you are writing non-fiction. You'll also need it in your pitch to agents and publishers. They want to see how this all lays out; if your thought process is organized and easily "gettable" by readers. It also affects how busy your indexer will be.

But in the novel? Pfaff! (or some other sound I don't know how to spell). Here's why it didn't work for me and it might not work for you.

Writing isn't necessarily linear. If it is for you, that probably makes it easier to just go step-by-step and write the story (trust me, I'm not minimizing the task here). You're among the lucky...I think. Because for me, my story is a mass of tangled strips of fabric and threads that are hanging all over the place and look a mess. There's lint and schmutz (stay with me here) and looming over my head is the dark fear that it will never, ever be a smooth, pretty, wearable cloak.

Though I've never indulged, it's exactly like quilting. Piecing together colors and shapes until you are satisfied that it may just be a fascinating, colorful and compelling work of art.

It took about two years to finish my first novel. I think that's long, but I hear stories from other authors who have lived with an unfinished manuscript for years that seem to never end; like a demon in the closet that screams to be attended to but you turn a blind eye/deaf ear and go about your days ignoring it and wishing it would just shut up. So two years...I'm a lucky girl.

At the time, there was a lot of activity in my house. In addition to the best husband in the universe, there were two grown kids who were on their (gradual) way to learning how to adult and a very needy but adorable greyhound (RIP Daisy). The house we lived in didn't afford me an office, a door I could shut and just work on my grand (so I hoped) oeuvre. I had to retreat to the bedroom or Starbucks. Which I often did.

No outline? Yeah. Difficult. Then a light bulb went off. I remembered that stack of pastel-colored index cards stuck in the bottom of a drawer that had wrapping paper and those free cards you get when you're pitched by non-profits. Index cards to the rescue!

I tried to get organized. I really did. I wrote the characters' names on the cards and recorded their individual timelines. Ellie: Married Rudy; divorced Rudy; meets Vince; joins jazz band... and so on.

Not only did I run out of room on each card, but I found myself splitting hairs (and maybe infinitives) with all the little things that happened to each character. I had spread them out before me on my king-sized bed and thought the visual would help with the story arcs.

This was abandoned in short order.

I had to go away.

Kissing my family goodbye, I set out for the long trek to [dum dum DUMMMM] New Jersey. About 45 minutes away.

I've always liked the Hampton Inn, so I found one right off the highway. Here it felt like luxury. Inviting, fluffy white bedding AND a couch, coffee table and a few nice chairs. Ahhh, time to get busy.

With the manuscript about to be deconstructed and torn asunder, I steeled myself. Spread paper all over the place, moving things around, using two pads of sticky notes: one yellow for I forgot what; and the other pink, for whatever else I was trying to accomplish.

I pored over Every. Single. Word. Okay, no biggie. That's what an author does, yes. But I had never experienced this kind of laser focus on the process. I split open my ears to hear what all the characters were telling me. I agonized over dialogue and racked my brains to find the passages mentioning something that had a chronological bearing on something else, of which there were naturally countless instances.

When I came up for air, the sun was low in the New Jersey sky. I dialed up the highest Yelp-rated Italian restaurant that delivered and ordered what had been in the back of my mind all day: eggplant parm with spaghetti. They wanted my room number. Huh? Deliver it to the front desk, buddy, and call me down, I replied. I AM BUSY writing my book and nobody may disrupt the process, I silently screamed.

When the front desk called, I flew downstairs and paid the guy. I ran back up to my paper hell. I was so hungry that I tore open the bag, found a Bill Evans album on YouTube, and dug in greedily.

I forgot to ask for plastic utensils, and I was looking so unwashed and slightly out of my mind, so I didn't want to go down to the dining room and grab a knife and fork. I am ashamed to say that I used my fingers to eat eggplant parmigiana and spaghetti. But I was hangry.

At the end of the weekend, I had assembled the manuscript to as full a sense of satisfaction as I believed possible for an author. There comes a time you have to let your baby go.

I had side-stepped the outline (YAY) and emerged from my marathon exhausted, relieved and with a bit of marinara in my hair.

Hey, it worked for me.

GLISSANDO: A story of love, lust and jazz was just released on Amazon. Check it out here.

Pictured above: my father's thesaurus. Well-worn and with notes in the margins, it remains one of my most cherished possessions.