I hit a speed bump in a story I’m writing when I didn’t know how to write what came next.
When I write stories, I tend to be an explorer: the story tends to come together as I write from start to finish. I might have thought about a broad direction it might go in, but nothing concrete.
But this time, I was stumped. I had reached a point in the story where my characters needed to do something. However, I had not figured out what was meant to come next.
This is where the power of outlining comes in handy. Having a direction for the story it makes it easier to plan the next steps. So I wrote down what I thought should happen next as a simple statement: ‘Character X experiences Y event.’
An outline is essentially a skeleton from which you hang the meat of the story. By using the little outline prompt I was able to write through the difficult part and move forward with the story.
Knowing what happens next is useful because it prompts the mind to start thinking about the details. What does the scene look like? What do the characters do and say? What other events could scene this lead to?
It’s entirely possible to do this for an entire story by chaining one point into the next, and many writers do this. It all comes down to personal preference.
Which do you prefer?