Writing a manuscript to a rigidly defined outline is a tricky business.
If you’re more pantser than plotter, then you may find hard outlines restrictive. Often, it’s impossible to know how a character will react until you put them in a given situation, so a rigid outline can feel forced or counter-intuitive. Faced with the thing, the character just wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t necessarily take the next step as listed in the synopsis.
And this can be a right pain in the bum.
There are some advantages. A rigid outline makes writing much quicker, and means a lot less unpicking and/or wasted wordcount (as you’re less likely to go haring off in completely the wrong direction). You won’t be left with a file of out-takes, strewn across the cutting-room floor. And there are disadvantages, when it feels cramming a square peg in a round hole, meaming a LOT of sanding before it’ll fit.
With this in mind, and as I’m finishing my second playthrough of Baldur’s Gate, I was thinking about gaming narratives, and how they help us as writers.
Gaming narratives have nodes. Set plot-points with which the character/s needs to interact in order to forward the main storyline, step-by-step. Like with a rigid outline, the characters need to move systematically from point A to point B, ticking off the boxes (and the bosses) as they go. In a game like Diablo, for example, this progression is methodical and very clear. Plus, there are side-quests, the fun things that your characters can do because they want to and/or to grind up their levels and get better gear.
From a plotting perspective, this arrangement of the essential and the non-essential means that you have some freedom. Yes, you progress to next checkpoint, but you can decide how you get there. It doesn’t have to feel forced, because you (and your character) can do it how you want, and in your own time.
And there’s a good lesson, right there. You don’t have to slam your book’s characters from plot-point to plot-point, skidding round the corners to get there as quick as you can. Take your time. Learn who they are. Explore the surroundings. Do those side-quests, but do make sure you don’t stray too far off-piste and you keep to your wordcount targets.
Finishing Baldur’s Gate (last boss was Cazador), I’m staggered by its richness and complexity. It has the same, basic structure – you move from point to point, and those points are more-or-less set – but their depth and versatility os far more subtle. If you miss a point, or choose to zig and not zag, then the narrative will simply shrug, pick it back up, and fold it back in. Plus, there are the interwoven plots of the NPCs, each of which brings something back to the main thread.
And there’s a lesson here, too.
In short: your plot doesn’t need to feel forced. However and wherever your characters (all of them) go, there are a dozen ways to link them back in to the storyline. If it feels more natural for the character to zig, then let them zig their little heart out. You can always supply them with a campsite cut scene, or an NPC encounter, to prod them back where they need to be.
Rigid plotting can be difficult. It can force you down a path that feels unnatural and sometimes, the further you progress, the more awry things go. But too much pantsing can be equally destructive as you end up foundering, with no idea what you’re doing or where to go next.
As with so many things, you take the best of both these worlds. Make sure you hit those checkpoints, but do have all the fun in navigating from one to the other.
Reading: Just started DallerGut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee, translated by Sandy Joosun Lee. If you’ve ever worked in retail (and in, just for example, a large store with multiple floors), you’ll see yourself reflected here. And the concept is really lovely, picking up your dreams as you enter REM sleep, and paying for them with all the wonderful emotions that they bring.
Watching: The Three Body Problem and holy shit it’s good. It’s a little different from the book, very sharp, quite unsettling and creepy, and with characters that come across like the Hard Science version of Friends. Plus the GN’s just been shortlisted for a Huge, so I should probably track that down.
Playing: Baldur’s Gate (duh), and we’re finally back to our long-term ‘Chicken Cormyr’ D&D campaign, shifting the characters forwards four years as their newest adventure commences. From saucepan-helmet and dustbin-lid-shield, they’re now proper grown-ups, with titles and responsibilities. But the Faerun Gods are missing, and how long will that new dignity last?
Maybe they’ll get their own campsite intervention, who knows?