Do you outline?

Of course! I will have some written and many more strongly etched ideas regarding the story line. Though I won't foolishly venture to call me a writer or novelist, my experience is that once you start, the story takes a course only partly influenced by the set story line or out line. Some characters grow with greater depth than originally planned. The incidents also very often undergo metamorphosis. There were instances when I felt that[formerly, my pen; now computer keys] the instrument is not fast enough as my mind pours down the ideas. This kind of inspired wrting does happen; but not always. When the plot of the story has shaken you inside out...you feel that you are under the grip of some unseen force. There are other times when you are convinced of the necessity for writing. But you don't feel that "oracle" like revelation gripping you. You don't know from where it came last time. And why it is not coming now.... Better have essentially a plan. The short and long of my experience is this: Have an out line or plan. But don't be a slave of your plan. If you feel and get some kind of unsupressible inspiration, listen and obey that. We don't know our subconscious.

The first novel I wrote was from a story I wrote as a teenager. I wrote an outline. I wrote chapter by chapter outlines so that I knew what happened when. With my second novel I did not do an outline. The story idea itself came from a writing prompt in group. Other scenes also came from writing prompts. I did not know where the novel was going to take me. I didn't do an outline. I think it is a great story and look forward to getting it out there. I think I will do outlines for future novels.

I used to try to outline my novel ideas, but got bogged down in Chapters 5 through 9. Once the novel reached a certain point, it just stopped, period, and nothing I did to make it move worked. So nowadays, I'm experimenting by taking two or three of my main characters, writing about them, and developing a trigger situation that in turn, leads to other problems for the characters, and so on. So I guess that you can say that this work is an extremely broad outline of sorts. But so far, it's working. I know my characters a little better and am able to delete illogical sequences. Now, my sequences are more logical, ie., this happened as a result of ..... and so on. So actually, I'm building my novel, rather than outlining it chapter by chapter.

I personally make notes in the beginning about the characters, dates of events if I am going to talk about those, and the details that I don't want to get confused over later. But then I just let it go. And part of the reason for that is, my writing can change from day to day depending on my mood...I can totally change what I want to happen if I have a great idea about how to work it, so I don't want to be re-outlining events, etc, every time I have a change of pace. Probably a good happy medium would work. Basic details, but not so much that you aren't giving yourself room to be creative.