Translation

One of the banes of the writer’s existence is figuring out how best to take what is in his or her head and put it on paper into something coherent.  There are a few writers who can write whole novels by the set of their pants, although those are rare(or at least rare in terms of producing anything good).  Many more are meticulous planners who painstakingly map out every plot point, character, and piece of dialogue they plan to include before they write anything

Most of us, however, are a combination of these school.  I prefer to outline a little bit in advance so the writing becomes a little more spontaneous.  If I outline too far, then the writing may drive right past the outline, to the point where the outline is no longer relevant, and all I really did was waste a great deal of time.  If I eschew an outline altogether, then I hit a wall and don’t know where I’m going.

The challenge is taking my limited outline and translating it into prose.  That means I usually need to get to my outline in short order so that I remember what I was looking at in the movie-in-my-head.  There have been times when I look at my outline and wonder what the hell it even meant.  More often, though, is figuring out how to make the outline-to-page translation palatable to the reader.  Trust me – any idiot can write a bunch of words, but that doesn’t mean they engage the reader.  Folks who’ve read office memos know this well.

I think the key is to pause every so often and ask yourself if the writing works.  Are you taking too much for granted, or are you handholding too much?  Does the prose match the outline?  This is one of the reasons writing takes so long, because we’re trying to make the page match the outline, despite the disparate styles(prose versus brainstorming).  This is something that can make outlines challenging as well since the outline can’t be totally abstract if it’s to be of use.

What I need is a cable of some kind that runs from my brain to the page…