by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Here’s a quick tip for those of you who already like to outline: save your outlines for your older books.
I’m now over 30 books in and I’ve found my memory seriously failing when it comes to remembering non-recurring characters and plots. The problem is most-evident with books published 8-10 years ago, but I may also struggle with details from books I wrote last year. There are just too many books. Or maybe it’s just that my memory completely stinks. :)
Once I had to re-read an entire book of mine before speaking to a local book club about it. I was happy to do it because I would have felt awful if they’d known the book better than I did, but I didn’t really have the time to do it.
In the past, when I’d finished and published a book, I ditched the outline as just another unnecessary file taking up space in Word. Then I realized…these outlines were the perfect cheat-sheets. I could pull them out and they’d jog my memory.
This has helped me not only with book club appearances, but with emails received from readers on particular books, and on Wattpad where sometimes I’m receiving a lot of comments about a book I’m uploading that I’ve written long ago.
An important point: if you decide to use your old outlines this way, be sure to note deviations from the outline on your document or else you’re not going to do yourself any favors. I do frequently diverge from the outline and I’ll make a short note with Word’s comments feature in track changes.
Do you keep your outlines? Any other uses for them that I haven’t thought of?
Why Outlining Writers Should Keep Their Old Outlines: Click To TweetPhoto credit: h.koppdelaney on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-ND
Elizabeth…excellent quick tip! May I ask how you use Wattpad? I’m not very familiar with it. Another question…I searched your blog regarding point of view and guess I would take away that an author can choose any pov, just use it correctly. Do you have any preference which to use in cozy mysteries or reader preference/expectation? Thanks☺️
Hi Brenda! I’m so sorry this is late…something odd is going on with my comments on WordPress in terms of notifications.
There seems to be a split with cozy writers on POV. I’ve traditionally only used 3rd person, but my new series is in 1st because I thought it might help readers connect with (get inside the head of) a new sleuth quickly. Readers don’t seem to have a preference, as far as I’ve been able to tell.
For Wattpad, I’m using the platform to serially release a chapter each week of an older work of mine. The readers there are anywhere from 13 to 30 (although I do sometimes pull in some older readers) and it’s a great way to reach a younger and more international audience.