AFAWN - Getting Started - Part 4

Beware of Pitfalls

All right, let’s say you’ve made the commitment to do some writing. You have an idea and you’re ready to start moving it from your mind to paper or a computer. The first thing writers tend to do is create an outline. Outlines aren’t inherently bad. But as mentioned before, you don’t need to figure out your entire plot before writing your first sentence. In fact, I would strongly advise against doing that. So, yes, whatever ideas you have, put them down and outline them, but don’t dwell too much on this. You may also have the urge to create a glossary (a list of character names and places). I would also strongly advise against doing this before you start writing.

Outlines and glossaries are excellent tools for a writer that become critical as a story becomes more complex. However, when you’re in the earliest stages of writing, these can become traps where you spend most of your time instead of doing actual writing. If you’ve ever played an RPG (role-playing game) and were stuck on the character creation screen for an hour, this is especially for you. Outlines and glossaries are good ways to keep track of your plot points and characters, but focusing too much on these at the start will be detrimental to your writing journey for two reasons.

First. You’re not actually writing your story, which means you’re not practicing and you’re not learning. And you can’t improve without practicing and learning. “Learn by doing.” “Practice makes perfect.” These both apply to writing. The writing process is complex and the more you do it, the more natural it will come to you. As mentioned in Part 3, the first time will be rough, but you’re only going to get better. And so the sooner you knock out that first chapter, that first draft, the sooner you can make progress.

Second. Writing is a fluid process. Things change constantly. Characters change. Events will change. Some will get added, some will get deleted. Writing is an amazing experience where your story becomes like a force of nature. Once you get the ball rolling and it picks up steam, it almost starts to lead you instead of the other way around. But we’ll talk more about that later.

The point here is that spending hours and hours on an outline or glossary at the start will end up being a waste of time because they don’t help with your writing and most of the content is going to change anyway. So, just be aware of this and make sure if you decide to do outlines/glossaries that they don’t completely consume your writing time/energy.