Although it was a lot of work, I can already see the benefits of having such a thorough outline. It is wonderful heading over to the computer everyday, opening up my outline, looking at my daysheet and knowing exactly what I should be working on that day.

I do see some ways I can condense my outline for next time and tailor it to my own needs and writing style, but I don’t know that I could have been this organized without Karen’s system. Yay! Thanks, Karen, for such a great book!

Greetings from a cold wet S.Africa

Shirl

Karen
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Using the 30 Days book, it jump started my muse into plotting. The questions you had in the book did it so I went on and wrote as much as I could.

Your book along with a few other books, never fail to get this pantser plotting. I’m a leap frog, combination plotter so your advice works great for me.

Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and methods with us.

Best,
Tambra

The whole point of any writing method (including my own included in FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS and FROM FIRST DRAFT TO FINISHED NOVEL) is to find out how you work best. If you’ve done that, CONGRATULATIONS!

If you haven’t, keep in mind first and foremost that an outline is for your own use. What do you need (and need to do) to make the story vivid in your mind?

With my two books, take as long as you need on all the worksheets and sketches. However, if you can’t seem to finish them, move on to something another step in the process. Try to continue progressing always. If you stall, work on another step. The more you work out, the clearer your story will be, and you will be able to fill in the last holes on those worksheets and sketches. And, if the worksheets don’t work for you and you prefer to just do free-form summaries, or even just work it all out in your formatted outline, you’re free to do what works best for you. Many of the worksheets are provided to give you help in pin-pointing problem areas. If you’re not having a problem in a certain area, you might want to skip certain worksheets and only use them if you’re running into problems. If you’re spending too much time on something that doesn’t seem to progress the story, move on to another step. You’re layering with all of this, building on what you’ve come up with, trying to develop it into something bigger and something that bonds.

I want to stress that you should avoid redundancy in this and all writing systems. The point is to have a clear picture of your characters (internal conflicts and goals and motivations), settings and plot conflicts. If you find yourself re-doing a lot of aspects from the worksheets, or coming up with information you just don’t need, avoid it. Just do what you need to do. What you find in my two books are designed to stimulate you to work through each step in order to come put with a detailed, scene-by-scene outline and novel. The entire goal of the system is to make sure you have everything you need to write instinctively. When you sit down to write the first draft, you should be able to start writing immediately because it’s all there in your outline, scene by scene.

I have a lot of experience writing books after having 55 of them published, with at least 15 more on the way, so I write instinctively. I immediately jump into writing the formatted outline. I don’t do worksheet sketches anymore because I can get a clear picture of everything during the course of my outlining. Only if I have problems do I go back and do the pre-writing aspects (i.e., fill out worksheets) of the system.

If you don’t feel like any of this is instinctive for you yet, go through the steps as I’ve set them down. But if you eventually get to the point where you don’t need anything but the formatted outline…well, that is the goal of this writing method. Only do what you need to to get that clear picture of the story, scene by scene.