What if I told you that it is possible to write a book without an outline?
What if I told you that many authors are doing this with great success?
And what if I told you that there was a roadmap, a guide, an exact playbook to writing your
next book without an outline?
In this video I'll be digging into Writing into the Dark by Dean Wesley Smith, which
teaches writers how to write without outlines.
***
What's up, guys?
This is Michael La Ronn with Author Level Up, giving you the best tools and strategies
for writing faster and reaching readers with your stories.
This is the kickoff to a new video series where I'll be covering the best books on
writing craft and talking about the ideas behind them to help you write better and faster.
For me personally, the foundational book that changed everything for me was Writing into
the Dark by Dean Wesley Smith.
I credit much of my prolific output to this little powerful but often misunderstood book.
Dean is a USA Today bestselling author and he wrote many of the Star Trek novels that
I read as a kid.
He's written over 100 novels and hundreds and hundreds of short stories in many genres.
Together with his wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he runs WMG Publishing, which publishes all
of Dean and Kris's books.
They also facilitate online and in-person workshops for writers with great writing advice
that you can't find anywhere else.
His writing courses are game-changers, guys—see my WMG Workshop Review video for more info.
So let's talk about the big idea in Writing into the Dark, which is this: writing without
an outline is a scary proposition for most writers, but it can be done.
But outlining is such a deep-seated habit because it's taught so widely in schools.
It's what teachers and college professors are recommending to their students, and people
are often reluctant to do the opposite of what they learn in school, even many years
later as an adult.
Most writers are trained to think they need an outline when in fact, some of the best
creativity comes from spontaneity.
There's no one way to do anything, and I'm not telling you that you need to stop outlining,
but many long time professional writers like Dean have learned to ditch outlines with great
success.
I found Writing in the Dark in late 2015, which was the perfect time in my life.
At the time I was frustrated with how much time I was spending on outlining.
For my Android X trilogy, I had actually tracked how much time I spent in every phase of the
book, down to the very minute.
It looked like this: 20% outlining
60% writing the first draft 20% revising the first draft
60% of my time for this entire series was actually spent writing.
If you look at that on a grade scale, that's a failing grade.
The other 40% was not spent writing at all.
And most of my emotional struggles were during the 40%.
And you know the worst part?
I didn't even follow my outlines most of the time.
The characters led me down different paths.
So if I was spending all this time writing outlines that I didn't follow...why was
I outlining again?
So I wanted to find a way to eliminate the "emotional rollercoaster" of writing a
novel.
You know, the ups and downs, both emotional and production-wise.
Your novel is awesome one day, horrible the next, you're writing one day, not writing
the next.
I prefer consistency, and I told myself that I'd rather reduce my time spend on outlining
and revising even if it meant spending a little more time writing the book.
Right around this time is when I found Writing into the Dark.
It was the answer I needed.
Now, this is a small book, but Dean covers a lot of concepts in it, like the fact that
writing without an outline is really scary if you haven't written without an outline
before.
He also covers how to manage uncertainty since you don't know what's going to happen
in your novel, and helpful hints such as simply writing the next sentence, cycling back through
your work so that you can write a clean first draft, and what to do when you're stuck.
A big concept that he explains is that creativity comes from the back of your brain—he calls
it the creative voice.
Others might call it a muse or your subconscious.
Similar idea.
But when we outline, we do it from the front of our brain, which is more logical and critical.
Dean calls it the critical voice.
This part of the brain's job is to keep you safe, so any time you have fear, the critical
voice jumps in to protect you.
It will tell you that your work sucks, or you should quit, or any other kind of silliness—anything
to make the fear go away.
And in this case, that's the fear that you can't write without an outline.
The critical voice is not your friend.
It's logical and not creative.
It wants to stop you from finishing your book, and it kills many writing careers every single
day.
Dean refers to it like a parent who's looking out for a child.
The creative voice is your friend.
It's insanely creative if you let it be, but it's a sensitive thing.
It's easily suppressed and stops cold the moment the critical voice starts speaking.
In order to thrive, it needs ample room to play.
If the critical voice is a parent, then the creative voice is the innocent, optimistic,
playful child.
You've got to let that child out to play, and play as much as possible.
Dean's point is that writing in its most pure and engaging form can only happen when
you learn to suppress the critical voice and let the creative voice do its job.
Easier said than done.
I consider the book to be not only a helpful book, but also a manifesto on how to be endlessly
creative.
Here's the #1 Idea from this book that changed my perspective on everything.
It's not even a popular section or a common highlight.
Most people will probably miss it.
That idea is this: "…Writing into the Dark takes a belief
system in story.
It takes a trust that your creative voice knows what it is doing.
And it takes a vast amount of mental fight [...to] let the fine work your creative voice
has done alone and not ruin it with your critical voice."
Writing as a belief system.
That got me thinking about my relationship with religion.
I believe in a higher power.
I can't prove it, though.
For example, I could tell you about an emotional experience I had that gave me faith, but you
can't see it.
I can't really convince you that a God exists.
Yet I still choose to have my own belief system because of faith.
Faith is believing in something even if you can't see it, even if you can't prove
it.
Without faith, you don't have a belief system./ It's the cornerstone on which any belief
in ANYTHING intangible rests.
I'm going to get philosophical for a minute, but writing for me is a sacred act.
It's as sacred as prayer.
When I sit down and write and simply trust my creative voice and have full faith in it,
I'm connecting with something higher than myself, for reasons beyond myself.
Because I don't outline, I never know where my story is going to go, but I trust my creative
voice.
And it always, always, always comes through for me.
It has never failed me.
Not once.
But that, like belief in any major religion, takes an incredible amount of faith.
And guys, I'm not an overly religious person.
Let me tell you another story.
When I decided to put Writing into the Dark into action, I tried it with Old Dark, Book
1 in my Last Dragon Lord dark fantasy series.
(Side note: I wrote my book Old Dark in the dark.
Get it?
Haha) I wrote this book with no outline, no idea
of what was going to happen except an image of the first scene in my head.
The story is one of the most interesting, twisting narratives I've ever written.
It's the story of Old Dark, a supreme Dragon Lord who has ruled the world for hundreds
of years with brutality.
He's a supervillain.
When an assassination attempt on his life goes wrong, he falls asleep and wakes up 1,000
years in the future, in a society ruled by his enemies.
The story starts off in a Game of Thrones-like, high fantasy world, but as I explored it,
it morphed into a futuristic urban fantasy as you follow Dark on his quest to seek revenge
and reclaim power.
It has a lot of plot twists, a lot of players, politics, and is quite Shakespearean in tone.
In other words, it's the kind of book most writers would try to outline first because
it's pretty complex.
Anyway, when I published the book, readers said some interesting things in their reviews:
They were posting things like the story was deliciously good, it kept them wanting more,
and all kinds of other things that I had never seen them write before.
That's when I knew that I was on to something.
So let me bring this full circle for you: I was frustrated with outlining, committed
to stop doing it.
I followed Dean's Writing into the Dark method, wrote an entire series without an
outline, and readers praised me for it and didn't even know the difference.
And ultimately, my story and characters were better for it.
All of that because I trusted my creative voice to do its job.
If that's not a success story, I don't know what is.
If you've never done this before, trust me: I know it's hard to give up the safety
of outlining and venturing into the dark instead.
To use Dean's analogy from the book, It's like journeying into a dark cave without knowing
where the exit is.
It's dark, pitch dark, and you can't see anything, not even your hand in front of your
face.
And it's scary too.
You fear what you can't see, and everything is new and frightening.
There are creepy stalagmites and stalactites, hidden bodies of water, and at every turn
it seems like you run into a dead end.
A few times you want to quit and run out of the cave, back into safety.
But if you remain patient and push through the discomfort, you'll eventually find the
exit.
You'll emerge on the other side.
And when you come out on the other side, it'll be one of the most amazing things you've
ever seen.
Fearlessness, self-confidence in your writing, satisfied readers and a better story all converge
into an incredible euphoria of a finished novel.
Anything feels possible.
You'll have so much more confidence and feel so much better about yourself and your
writing that it won't even be funny.
But in order to get there, you've got to get through the cave.
And the first time around, I'm not gonna lie—it's a bitch.
But it gets easier every time you do it as long as you have faith and trust your creative
voice.
Writing into the Dark is available at all major retailers in ebook and paperback formats.
You can grab your copy via the links below.
I hope that the book will be as transformative for you as it has been for me.
And if you liked this video, check out the rest of the videos in this series, where I
dive into writing craft books and explore them on a deeper level.
And of course if this is your first time watching, I'd love to have you subscribe.
Every week I publish videos just like this one with writing advice to help you write
better and grow your influence with readers.
Thanks for watching.
I'll see you in the next video.
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