On outlines and imagination

[elfs]

While doing some research about writing robust story outlines, I came across this quote from philosopher and writer Arnold Schopenhaur once advised: "Write the way an architect builds, who first drafts his plan and designs every detail."

I had to smile when I read that. It made me feel a whole lot better about writing the way I write. Why? Because Schopenhaur is so utterly wrong about the way a building is put together that my helter-skelter method of writing looks positively disciplined.

First of all, architects do not build buildings. They design them. Tom Poppendieck once went to a construction site and had this conversation:

"In software development, we are told we should manage our projects like construction projects, where a building is designed at the start, cost and schedule are predictable, and customers get what they expect."

Silence. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, honest, that's what we're told."

Incredulity turns to laughter. The idea that programmers would want to manage projects like the construction industry strikes my classmates as ludicrous.

They struggle every day with a master schedule which bears little relationship to reality, with materials that should be on site but are not, or materials that need to be stored because they arrived before they were needed. The never know when the crew that precedes them will be ready to turn an area over to them, so they never know how to staff their crews. They are plagued constantly by the two biggest forms of construction waste -- people waiting for materials and work waiting for people.

Writing, too, is a lot like that. Writing may be a solitary activity, but writers suffer from both problems: time wasted struggling to bring an idea to fruition, and brilliant ideas left on the wayside while the writer struggles with the ones he or she already has. You might have a plan-- you might have an outline, even-- but if you're not sure what compels the character to head to Mars or what clearances he has to go there, you're wasting your time writing scenes set on Mars. It might not be a total waste if you trust your subconscious enough to cough up the answer "How does he get to Mars?" But that's a decision you have to make, and you have to have written enough to know how reliable your process is, to make that decision.