Zitat des Tages über Gliederung / Outline:
I start with an idea that is no more than a paragraph long, and expand it slowly into an outline. But I'm always surprised by the directions things take when I actually start writing.
To me the only real star of the movie is the writer. And I work with writers very closely, from outline to first draft and on to the seventh draft, whatever it takes. Then my job is to support the director to make the best movie we can. Some producers try to go past them, but my job is to support them.
I love the Web, but the basis of my work is going through the physical books. When you go to the library, you see other books around on the shelves that you never knew existed. You can flip through a book and see the whole outline of it.
I'm a big fan of outlining. Here's the theory: If I outline, then I can see the mistakes I'm liable to make. They come out more clearly in the outline than they do in the pages.
For me it's more important that I outline all the facets of a controversial issue and let the reader make up his or her mind. I don't care if readers change their minds, but I would like readers to ask themselves why their opinion is what it is.
Ebola so scary and so unfamiliar, it's really important to outline what the facts are and that we know how to control it. We control it by traditional public health measures. We do that, and Ebola goes away.
I routinely oscillate between exultation and despair. Maybe at the end of the day I feel pretty good about what I've written, but the next morning I see that it's crap. Then I start again - make a new outline, do some more research, try to rethink the whole question.
I never do a full outline, and if I did, I would not feel bound to it, because the view from inside a scene can be different from the view outside it. But neither do I just start writing and see what happens; I am far more disciplined than that.
I think that by following the route that I have tried to outline, one gets into a much more interesting and productive series of questions than those that result from saying simply that Chinese don't like milk because they don't like milk.
I'm a great planner, so before I ever write chapter 1, I work out what happens in every chapter and who the characters are. I usually spend a year on the outline.
Partly because of the way I write - I don't work with an outline or in a straight line. I work where I can see things happening, and so I get lots and lots of little bits to start with, and I'm doing the research at the same time.
I don't write shows with dialogue where actors have to memorize dialogue. I write the scenes where we know everything that's going to happen. There's an outline of about seven or eight pages, and then we improvise it.
I usually start with an ending, then outline high points of things that happen, and kind of make up the rest as I go along. Occasionally, the characters surprise me, and I wonder how we got here. Other times, the characters are stubborn and won't do something I want them to in the story.
Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their player and motivate.
The first sequel thing I wrote was this 'Forever Dawn' thing that will never get out, because it's horrid. But it's a really good outline for 'Breaking Dawn' - it's very similar. I knew what I was doing, which is good, because I think if I hadn't, there might have been a lot of pressure.
No, no. I draw the line there. Anything that's going to show an outline of my manhood is not on.
I outline fairly extensively because I'm usually dealing with real events. I don't need to give myself as much information as I used to, but I still like to have two pages of outline for every projected 100 pages of manuscript.
The way I outline has changed quite a bit from when I first started writing.
Animals outline their territories with their excretions, humans outline their territories by ink excretions on paper.
Talking points are a core set of messages an executive or politician utilizes in communicating with stakeholders. It's a term of art for having an outline of your remarks.
I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way.
When you love a man, he becomes more than a body. His physical limbs expand, and his outline recedes, vanishes. He is rich and sweet and right. He is part of the world, the atmosphere, the blue sky and the blue water.
I don't work in a straight line. I don't write with an outline. I write where I can see things happen, and then things get glued together.
The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.
I don't outline. I sit down to write, and I take the ride. If something starts to not feel right, I go back to the last place that felt like jazz to me.
One guy wanted an outline of my foot. Another guy wanted locks of my hair.
I like to make an outline or cards and then utterly ignore them.
I don't plan the books ahead of time. It's not like Harry Potter. I don't work in a straight line. I don't write with an outline.
When I sat down and wrote the first paragraph, I was like, 'Oh, I can go with this.' I didn't do an outline. I didn't do anything. I just wrote sentence by sentence, not knowing where the story was going.
By about chapter six of 'Wolf Brother,' I was having so much fun that I knew I wanted it to go on and I couldn't tell Torak's story in one book. So I sat down, and it took me about a week to plan in broad outline all six books.
All your life, you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.
My ideas had been taking a socialistic shape for many years; but they were lacking in definite outline.
I went to this tattoo parlor in the East Village and I got an outline of a violin on my lower back. They call them tramp stamps now.
If you do come across 'Sanctus' in a bookshop, please see past the cross on the cover and the sinister outline of a monk and just read the first page and make your own mind up. If it's still not for you, then that's fine; just put it back and walk away.
Outlining is like putting on training wheels. It gives me the courage to write, but we always go off the outline.
I always have a rough outline, but I'm shocked at how little I actually follow it. Those characters keep doing things that I never expected. I think if I crept up to my keyboard and peeked, they'd be talking about things behind my back. Okay, that's a little paranoid and delusional... but just a little.
