A Musical Secret

We’ve had plenty of articles about the importance of outlining here at LTWF, but today I thought I’d throw one more at you. Something a little out of left field, if you will. Something different. Because when it comes to outlining, I’ve never been a fan. In fact, I pretty openly despise it. Only recently have I been somewhat converted to the monstrosity known as the Detailed Outline (meaning I’ve only done it for one book); in every other instance (including the novel I actually made a Detailed Outline for), I’ve gone about things a bit differently.

My secret? I outline using music.

Writers are inspired by all sorts of things. Maybe for you it’s a conversation you overheard on the subway, or a really incredible piece of art. Maybe your ideas come to you while you’re in the shower, or in the middle of taking an exam. For me, music’s always been my muse. I tend to write my novels as if they were movies — I can see them play out in my head and, more importantly, can imagine the soundtrack playing faintly in the background. Ironically, I can’t write with music playing, but it’s a huge factor in actually getting me to write.

Allow me to explain how this all works.

Step 1: I get an idea for a novel. For realism’s sake, we’ll use my current WIP as an example.

Step 2: I open iTunes. That’s right — before I even open Word, I’ve got to get a playlist started. I even come bearing an example:



As you can see, this is the playlist for SILENCE. It’s still growing, but the initial playlist, before I even began writing, consisted of about 20 songs. Because the story’s very melancholy and quiet, I put together a compilation of songs that I thought would work well to set the tone. For example: William Fitzsimmons, Peter Bradley Adams, and a bunch of instrumentals.

Step 3: Start writing.

Step 4: Add songs to playlist. As new scenes are written, I try to imagine what song might be playing in the background if it were actually a movie. Most of the time the song actually inspires the scene, but sometimes it’s the other way around. For example, I consider SILENCE’s theme song to be If You Would Come Back Home by William Fitzsimmons, which is at the very top of the playlist. It isn’t directly related to any scene, but I always listen to it before I start editing. It really helps me sink back into the story and how I felt when I was writing it. Some people set the mood for a romantic evening at home. Me? I set the mood for a romantic evening with me and my computer.

Pivotal scenes often get more than one song. In the first chapter of SILENCE, the main character has a flashback to the night her parents died. The scene initially starts with a song from Yann Tiersen’s Amelie score, but as the tension grows, it turns into a song from Mansfield Park. Different instruments lend themselves to certain feelings, and in some cases, instrumentals aren’t even good enough. Sometimes you need lyrics. My soundtracks are so random and mismatched, but somehow, it just works.

By the time I’m done with a story (written and edited), the playlist is usually between 30 and 50 songs. It really depends on how scene-specific I get. SILENCE is a bit more like that, while my playlist for THE AGE OF NEVER GROWING OLD is more generic and mood-setting than anything. It all depends on the story. All I know is that this is the only real way I can outline. I start associating songs and lyrics with specific scenes or characters. The first novel I wrote had a pretty short playlist (short being 25 songs), but every time one of those comes up on my shuffle, I’m still reminded of scenes I wrote nearly a decade ago. Music sticks with you, which is why I think it’s been such an effective tool for me. So for those of you who are like me and are having trouble outlining, maybe give the musical route a go. If anything, you’ll get an awesome playlist out of it!

Outlining

I have never been a proponent of outlining. I've always written things on the fly, and figured I'd work out any problems as they popped up in the manuscript. I didn't care that I didn't have a plan. I was a reckless writer, and that worked for me. I found that the more I planned for a story, the less excited I was when I eventually sat down to write it. So, instead, I would get just a glimmer of an idea, plop down at my computer, and type up as much as I could.

And that method worked.

For a while.

These days, I'm slowly starting to rethink the way I write. Maybe it was writing a thesis that instigated the change, or talking to other writers who always outlined first. Maybe I just realized that my old way of doing things was no longer working for me. Whatever the reason, something changed.

Though I'd tried to outline stories before (we're talking back in middle school and high school), I'd never get further than chapter three. I'd come up with a sufficient beginning; I'd let the rest of the chips fall where they may. So, during college, I gave up trying to outline altogether. I said "fuck it," and just wrote whatever came to mind. And that produced a few manuscripts, though I don't think I'd ever hand them over to an agent. They're drawer manuscripts, as my thesis advisor called them; they were practice runs, not a book I'd want to see on a shelf (Okay, maybe DON'T MAKE A SCENE. But only if I edited the crap out of it.). And I was okay with that.

Then last semester happened. Thesis semester. And while I'd written a good chunk of THE AGE OF NEVER GROWING OLD during NaNoWriMo, I had a third to write, and then a whole lot of revisions ahead of me. So I tried something new: I outlined the story after I'd finished it. Which may sound weird, but hear me out. Outlining after the fact turned out to be really helpful. I was able to see where I'd placed all of the rising actions, where things fell flat, where I could use some more character development, etc. And everything was already written, so I had material to work with when I began editing. So for that project, outlining after I'd finished turned out to be a great idea. And it was the first time I'd successfully outlined anything from beginning to end.

Since finishing my thesis, I haven't been able to stick to any one project. I have writing OCD (I swear this should be a legitimate, diagnosable, disease). I tried to outline a few of my projects before I began writing, but that failed. I then tried to outline as I wrote, and that failed, too. No surprises there. I was getting frustrated. I had one book book being queried, four finished books twiddling their thumbs on my hard drive, and a million ideas floating through my head. I wrote nearly 25k on one project, but as of today, haven't worked on it in nearly two months.

So what's a girl to do?

Last night I needed a break from an endless pile of homework, and decided to look over something I'd written last weekend - the first chapter of a book entitled SILENCE. I'd meant for it to be a WWII young adult romance, but after thinking it over, decided it could work just as well as a futuristic dystopian. So I turned to Microsoft Word, opened a new document, and began typing. And you know what I typed up? Half of an outline. The entire first half of the book is in outline form right now, and the best part is that I like it. It makes sense. And I have a general sense of what I want to happen in part two, so you know what? I'm going to outline that as well. Probably this weekend.

And you know what I'm going to do after I finish outlining? I'm going to write. Because it's the only way to keep my mind off the queries I have floating around in cyberspace. If TANGO doesn't get picked up by an agent, I'd like to have something else to send out, especially considering the fact I had a few agents ask to see other work. So! Time to get to it!

How do you guys outline?