How to Write By the Seat of Your Pants: Outline or No by Author Jacqueline Lynch

About Jacqueline Lynch

Jacqueline T. Lynch’s novels are available as ebooks from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Several of her plays have been published and produced around the U.S., CanadaCanada, and one of which was translated into Dutch and performed several times in the Netherlands. Her ONE GOOD TURN premiered as a winner of the 2011 Northern Kentucky University Y.E.S. Festival. Her one-act play IN MEMORY OF TRIXIE GAZELLE was chosen as a winner in the 2010 Nor’Eastern Playwright’s Showcase of the Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre in Rutland, Vermont.

She has published articles and short fiction in regional and national publications, including the anthology “60 Seconds to Shine: 161 Monologues from Literature” (Smith & Kraus, 2007), North & South, Civil War Magazine, History Magazine, and writes Another Old Movie Blog and New England Travels blog.

For more information, please visit her website at www.JacquelineTLynch.com

How to write by the seat of your pants: outline or no

The question of an outline in writing a novel is not so much whether or not to use one, but how to use it. Obviously, a writer needs to follow a logical path to achieve the goals of the story. But paths are seldom straight. It can pay to follow the contours of the land.

Take the analogy of hiking up a mountain. You can climb straight up, which is exhausting, and that straight line you envision might be interrupted by annoying trees and boulders. Or, you could take a route, much the way many hiking paths and some auto roads up mountains go -- following the contour of the mountain and rising gradually. It takes longer, but it’s less taxing and more scenic. Sometimes they even place benches for you to sit and rest at panoramic overlooks. Bring a snack.

Your novel has contours as well. We don’t see them at first, because we’re committed to the trajectory we’ve set in the outline. But if you allow your imagination to look beyond the boundaries you’ve set, the story can develop in new and exciting directions.

Nor is it really necessary to always write in a linear fashion. Years ago as a young writer I got stuck on a scene, but I knew what I wanted to write in a later chapter. I figured, nobody’s looking, so I’ll just write the later chapter first. Now I chapter hop all the time.

You can meander in any fashion you want in a first draft. Obviously, when it comes to later drafts -- I tend to go through several -- you are back to making sure the line of the story is straight. Being a good editor and doing re-writes is imperative for any writer, but the first draft is a different phase in the process. You should feel free to experiment.

Take another analogy of an artist painting on a canvas. He does not start in the far upper left corner and obsessively work his way across to the top right or lower right corners. He paints anyplace on the canvas he feels can use a little more yellow or some shadow. He may experiment with different brush strokes, or use a palette knife. A writer can also be free to experiment with different methods.

In a story that needs a fast pace, why not try talking out a first draft with voice-recognition software? You might have it already installed on your computer. It’s not a perfect way to write, but this is only a first draft. Just talk off the top of your head and use a stream-of-consciousness technique to move the story along quickly. Tame it later.

I think we are too rigid sometimes in these questions of outlines and methods. To be a writer is to be creative. As much as we need to write within a framework, we also need to sometimes look beyond it.

Four towns, gone. Dismantled slowly while their inhabitants grieve for a history and heritage that has been voted away from them. The present threatens; the future belongs to the fearless.

“Beside the Still Waters” is a family saga based on an actual event which displaced four entire towns in central Massachusetts for the construction of a reservoir. Today, the Quabbin Reservoir provides water for millions of citizens, primarily in the greater Boston area.

Families are divided between those who protest the construction project, those who give up and leave, and those who help to build it. The central character is Jenny, a girl who comes of age facing the extinction of her community, who becomes the guardian of her family’s heritage, and ultimately, the one to decide what happens to them.

A rift between two brothers, Eli and John Vaughn, at the turn of the 20th Century continues through to the next generation as John tries to use Jenny, Eli’s daughter, in a plot to regain the family farm from Alonzo, who now runs it, who is Jenny’s love. John is broke and eager to sell the farm to the state, which is buying up area property for the coming reservoir. Both Alonzo and Eli refuse to sell their properties, and protest removal by eminent domain. Torn between loyalty to her family and heritage, and the allure of a future beyond the valley, Jenny refuses to remain powerless like the men she loves, but looks for a way to take control. A disastrous decision may prove fatal in a race against time.

Beside the Still Waters is her third book.