BY TERRI WAGNER
Years ago, I was into gaming. Now, mind you, this was old-time gaming. We would choose our characters, plug in a game, and begin. In those seemingly ancient days, you would come to, say, a fight scene. Each of you would determine what your character will do, enter that information into the computer, and wait for the computer to translate your choices into a fight sequence and tell you the result. I always enjoyed this more than the click-and-shoot games of today because I had a say in what happened.
My favorite memory here is that my character (a cleric half human, half elf named Sean) and the good knight knocked on a door accompanied by our neutral evil thief and completely clueless magic user. Bottom line: when the fight finished, Sean and the knight were standing back to back, having just wiped out an entire barracks of bad guys. We didn’t know it was a barracks of bad guys. We thought it was a tavern.
There is a point here. As the games progressed, of course, so did we. Well, we tried. Truth was, we never did like games where the computer did all the action. We liked deciding what spells to cast, and what weapons to use, and the odd consequence. Our new game was impossible to figure out, much less win. Let’s just say we spent a good bit of money on calling the tech support line.
Essentially a maze that led to a treasure, the game had an interesting hitch. When you made choice A, you would hear a noise in the background. That was possibly choice F, D, or E getting omitted. For example, if you went down the long, lonely, dark hallway and choose Door #1, and entered, then Door #6 became off limits. The kicker was that later on, you might need Door #6 open. So there was a lot of grumbling, fussing, and the occasion cursing, and way too much backtracking.
That’s what happens when you edit your story without an outline. You are taking a chance that by changing even something minor in Chapter 1, Scene 5, that down the line in Chapter 4, Scene 3, you no longer have the original option available to you. When you outline, you have a map of your story in front of you. A map you can refer to. For example, if you decide that minor character Jonesy needs to die in Chapter 2, he can’t reappear in Chapter 7—unless of course you are writing about zombies or the walking dead.
I was fascinated to discover that all movies use storyboards, which is basically what an outline is for a writer. They mock up each individual scene and put them in order to determine if the actions taken in Scene 1 affect the ending. Without it, movies would be nonsensical. (Yes, I realize they appear on the whole as nonsensical, LOL.)
Just imagine a labor-intensive project like Lord of the Rings. Now imagine making The Hobbit. You’d have to review, in the very least, Fellowship of the Rings to make sure you are not contradicting something. Only in comedy sequences can you laugh-track off the odd mistake.
If you are an artist as well as a writer, consider a visual storyline. There are a number of tools on the Internet that can help: you Prezi, PowerPoint, Timetoast come to mind.
The outline becomes your Bible. It will serve you well. Don’t discount it because it seems labor-intensive. Backtracking all the way to Door #2 is far more strenuous, not to mention what it does to you sanity.
Editor Terri Wagner lives, writes, teaches, and edits from her home in Alabama. Her current project, Mr. Gunn and Dr. Bohemia, a Steampunk action/adventure by Pete Ford, will be released in October, 2013.