Should You Make an Outline Before You Write?

With most nonfiction, the answer is yes.

A few years ago I accepted an invitation to serve on a dissertation committee for a brilliant guy who found writing very difficult. His dissertation, which he desired to turn into a popular book on sustainable farming, suffered from lack of an outline. He knew what he wanted to say, and he had done months of research, but his ideas were jumbled on all levels. Not only sentences and paragraphs but entire pages were out of place.

For example, all of the following ideas, a sentence or two devoted to each, occurred in one small paragraph.

• human connection to food

• farmers as expendable

• destruction of local economies

• industrialization

• spiritual separation from nature.           

Needless to say, the paragraph made no logical sense, as if every thought was a non sequitur. It does not follow.

This writer’s subjects were interrelated, yes. So is all of life. So what? A reader needs to understand what you are trying to say. Otherwise, what’s the point of writing?

I marked up his manuscript. I marked spots in which multiple ideas and themes were thrown together in a single section, like a big old tossed salad. I pointed out possible chapters.

Creative nonfiction writers have to resist the urge to talk in circles (like the middle farmer in the photo). You know how much I, being a poet and a wild woman, am opposed to linearity, but I have to admit that, in order to be well understood, writing in a linear fashion—subject after subject, story after story, so that a reader can follow our thinking—is the way to go.

We open a feed sack. We lead a reader down a trail. We put a train on a track.

"My advice to you," I told the PhD hopeful, "is to create a viable outline, not simply with chapter titles but with extensive listings under each chapter heading. Then use a pair of scissors to cut each page apart and re-form pages under appropriate headings. You have to write this in a more-systematic, less-random manner, or this manuscript is going to stay a jumbled mess, and you’ll stay confused and undirected. You shouldn't do anything more here until you get the structure correct."

Writing is hard work. It takes tremendous brainpower. It makes you crazy, it makes you want to scream.

I’m not going to speak to fiction or poetry, because they are different beasts. For creative nonfiction, if the structure is sound, the writing gets much, much easier.

(So you don’t worry about him, the candidate got his PhD.)

---

From Submittable

Have you checked Submittable lately? I took a spin over there today and found an interesting offer.

If you live in Monroe County, Florida, you qualify to apply for a month-long residency at Dry Tortugas National Park. I’m chuckling about it, because the ad says, “Are you able to be alone with a partner, on a beautiful island, in seclusion for a month, having packed in all the food and supplies you will need?

Oh, to be a resident of Monroe County.

---

“Readers Write” in THE SUN MAGAZINE

I’m on the mailing list for THE SUN, and I received the themes for “Readers Write” in upcoming issues. I thought I’d pass them on to you. Here’s the link to submit.

Readers Write asks readers to address subjects on which they’re the only authorities. Writing style isn’t as important as thoughtfulness and sincerity and topics are intentionally broad in order to give room for expression. We publish only nonfiction in Readers Write. You’ll receive a complimentary one-year subscription for yourself or a friend if your piece is selected for publication.

Dirt: Entries due July 1

Do your pets and your kids track it in the house every day? Do you like the look of it under your fingernails after a day in the garden? Maybe you’ve got some good dirt on a friend. Or maybe you’re preoccupied by the idea of spending eternity under it after you’re dead. Dig deep and send us your true stories on “Dirt.”

Drama: Entries due August 1

Do you have a flair for the dramatic or crippling stage-fright? Did you nail your solo in the high-school musical or forget your lines at a community-theater production? Tell us about the time you were Joseph in the living nativity, how you fell in love with improv, or about a particularly drama-laden family dinner. True stories from audience, cast, and crew welcome, but don’t spend too long rehearsing: the curtain falls on this topic on August 1.

Yard Sales: Entries due September 1

Have you ever had to off-load your possessions when your life changed? Do you love looking through strangers’ belongings? Tell us about finding an unexpected treasure in a box full of junk or parting with your kids’ baby clothes. Did your parents sell that childhood memento you still wish you could get back? Would you haggle over a one-dollar shirt? Sell us on your true stories about yard sales.

Fantasy: Entries due October 1

Maybe the covers of the paperbacks on your bookshelf all feature fire-breathing dragons and lots of chain mail. Maybe you think — a little too much — about leaving it all behind and sinking your feet into the sand of some sunny, faraway beach. Maybe you know someone whose head is constantly in the clouds. Make a dream come true and send us your true-story submissions about fantasy.