Sanderson style outlining in Curio

Posted by satis
Aug 20, 2023 at 02:06 AM

Put ten writers in a room and don’t be surprised if you get 10 different recommendations. Probably more, since individual processes can change over time.

I don’t think Sanderson’s recommendation could ever work for my fiction.

I don’t outline each plot thread separately because everything starts too tentatively. Plot threads are at least partly dependent on other plot elements, or other character actions in a timeline - actions which might change as I think about story or as previously unforeseen circumstances or dialogue arise. And when that happens it changes other plot threads.

If I were to use Sanderson’s system as described I worry I’d be less willing to make changes, less willing to speculate and play, because I’d internally balk at having to change all the other relevant plot threads (unless I duplicated everything and used revision drafts of outlines) - and knowing that it might be a wrong decision and need to be reversed. I don’t mind rewriting in a word processor (which does versioning), but my outlines are speculative conglomerations broken don by Act, which makes it easier to conjecture and facilitate changes which end up on an index card storyboard.

(I’ve tried to storyboard electronically but it does not work for me. There is just *something* about being able to stare a couple of feet away at index cards on a wall color-coded with Post-It Notes by character, separated down by Act, and see everything as a whole. Although digital index cards and storyboards proliferate they hold too little text l and I can’t take in story the same way.)

I do write out separate tentative plot threads, but in OmniOutliner with tons of branching speculative subnodes (and tons of notes and draft text) containing ideas to be massaged later in a text editor. I freewrite within outline form. My outlines typically contain many dozens of pages of draft story ideas, dialogue and draft text because it’s so easy to do in the app. Mind map apps aren’t good writing/editing environments, and when I’m brainstorming and outlining I don’t like to switch between multiple apps.

I have no idea who that YouTube creator is, or how accurate his enthusiastic explication of Sanderson’s outlining method is, but Sanderson does write about his method on his site and it seems more straightforward than the video.

https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/can-you-go-into-depth-about-outlining/