My dissertation project, working title Antikythera, is set in the early 4th century BCE. I’m well aware that my main characters’ contemporaries are long dead. Their ancestors are long dead, or at least so well-scattered it’s hard to trace the family tree. I’m well aware that none of their friends are going to come up and tell me I’m doing it wrong. I know, logically, I have a little wiggle room.
It’s just so… awkward.
Read MoreOutlining gives me the scope to do a little content editing as I go, and it means I can nudge the characters in the right directions when I need to. It gives me a level of omnipotence I wouldn’t really get otherwise, which streamlines the whole process and means I can actually finish my projects.
One of the biggest problems with outlining is that it can lead to a rigid plot without much room for character interaction. If you just write down a list of places you want your characters to end up, you’ll find yourself staring at your characters while they refuse to move or react to anything. I suspect this is the problem most people have with outlining: it’s hard to translate natural characterization into bullet points.
But it’s not impossible.
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