I’ve never outlined a novel. Okay, so I’ve only written five novels and independently published them. So far, I’ve had a general idea of how I wanted the story to move along and sort of let the characters carry it there. I do usually know how I want it to end. It’s just that getting there is kind of up in the air. To me, my characters are real people responding to events in real ways and that drives the story.

None of my previous five novels is a mystery. That’s an entirely different ball of wax. I can definitely see where an outline would be a good thing to have while writing a mystery. I might have finished mine by now if I had outlined it first.

First up, it would have forced me to figure out the series of events that needed to take place right up front. It might take a while to get that all figured out and might seem a lot like writing the novel right on the spot which might be why I’ve never done it (because, why not just write it?). But I do see the benefit.

Second, it would have helped me to keep those events consistent with any action the characters might dictate. And it would have helped me to manage the clues and red herrings. I’m making notes as I go along, but when you have two or three pages of notes to look over each time you want to check something for consistency, well it gets bothersome.

I’m still working on the novel I think of as “Orwell” (because of the main character) and it is titled, “As Luck Might have It.” Just today, I had to go back and find certain passages to edit them for continuity because of a little twist a character introduced. I didn’t want to abandon the twist because it seemed like a good one.

I’ve made good use of the “Find” function in the Microsoft Word program. The hard part is coming up with a word or series of words that is as specific as possible to the particular scene that I want to find.

If, in the future, I ever write another mystery, I will definitely outline it first. I will give serious thought beforehand to how I want it all to unfold.

Photos and quotes courtesy of Ride the Pen, Brainy Quotes and A-Z Quotes respectively