I’m endlessly fascinated by how different successful authors approach the story planning process. Cheryl at Learn to Write Fiction compares the processes of three authors in The Many Faces of a Plotter. She says of Lois McMaster Bujold:
Lois makes a broad section outline, what she calls “the event horizon”, which is how far she can see to write until she has to stop and make up some more. This is usually between one and three chapters. She gets mental pictures of what scenes should go in the next chapter and she pushes them around until they slot into sequence. She then pulls out the next scene and outlines it closely, as a kind of messy first draft. She choreographs dialogue especially carefully.
I find this approach interesting. Cheryl doesn’t say whether Bujold knows the ending, but she does mention that she re-outlines frequently, since each scene can change what comes next. If I was ever going to try writing a story in linear order again (the order in which the finished novel would be read), I think this is the method I’d try. But I’d have to have at least an idea of some ending, even a pretend one. I need that false sense of security to keep the pages coming.
