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The Outlining vs. Organic Writing Debate →
Writing can sometimes be a nebulous process. In school we’re taught that to establish an early sense of purpose in what we write, there’s the need to take that information to mold, to stretch and to dig deep into its potential by creating an outline of what we hope to get across. Some still practice it, some don’t. Larry Brooks distinguishes the two by name. The Organic writers and the Outliners. You choose the approach that works for you without sacrificing quality.
To write a successful story, you can’t wing it and expect to get to the promised land. That doesn’t mean you need an outline, it means you need a foundational core competency in story architecture. No matter how you write.
Once you have it, you can wing it all you want. Your stories will come out in the right sequence with proper pacing. Or, you can get there by constructing outlines that yield stories in which everything is in the right place at the right time.
