Do You Outline, or Do You Write into the Dark?

By Glynn Young @ gyoung9751
A problem developed while I was writing my fifth novel. The problem had to do with what I conceived as a minor character – a four-year-old boy who would grow to adulthood during the story. But he wasn’t the main character; far from it, in fact. He was supposed to have a bit role.
Unfortunately, he had a different idea.
I kept floundering with the manuscript because this kid kept sticking his head in. It was as if he was demanding a bigger part of the story. I was hitting dead end after dead end, and my writing was going nowhere.
I did the only thing I knew to do. I gave him a larger role, if nothing else just to keep him quiet and out of my head. It was all the opening he needed. He promptly took over.
When I realized that he was evolving into the central character, the main character, the hero of the story, I knew had two options. I could immediately fire him or reduce his role. Or I could listen to him and trust him to know what he was doing.
I surrendered.
I’ve learned there are two approaches to writing fiction. One is to work from an outline, sometimes general and sometimes highly detailed, but a careful plan for the story. The other is to start with an idea or an event or a character, and simply start writing. My friend Harvey Stanbrough, who’s written a book on the subject called Writing Better Fiction , and publishes a daily blog ** on writing, believes there’s really only one way to write fiction, and that is “writing into the dark.” What he means is to trust your writing subconscious, and let your characters tell the story.
When I first read about writing into the dark, I had to think about how I write (and note this only applies to fiction, not non-fiction). I realized I’d never used an outline. Not once in five published novels, three completed manuscripts, and several “in progress” books. I had used particular scenes from my imagination to start, but I had never planned them out. I thought I had imagined my entire first novel before I ever typed the first word, but going back over notes and early versions showed me otherwise.
I write into the dark. That’s how that four-year-old kid ended up causing so much trouble. (And I trusted him!)
That doesn’t mean I’m always writing from a blank slate. I usually start with an image, or the image suggests itself. My first novel started with listening to a music program on a flight to San Francisco and one song evoking the image of a priest dancing on a beach. (The song was about neither a priest nor a beach.) That’s how it started, and it was a decade in the making. But I never outlined the story. I never wrote down a plan. Instead, I trusted this character. I allowed him to lead me where he wanted to go. And I tried to stay out of his way, knowing what would happen when I tried to control things.
Dead ends, every time. Every single time.
I write into the dark. I let my characters tell the story. I stay out of their way.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that the four-year-old is laughing at me.
Glynn Young   is a national award-winning speechwriter, communications practitioner, and novelist. He’s the author of five published novels,  Dancing Priest ,  A Light Shining ,  Dancing King ,  Dancing Prophet ;   and   Dancing Prince ; and the non-fiction book  Poetry at Work .  Visit Glynn on Facebook , LinkedIn ,  Pinterest , his   blog , the   Dancing Priest book page , and his   business web site .
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