The Benefits of Outlining

Generally speaking, writers fall into two different categories: outliners and non-outliners (or, as my friend Linda has dubbed them, “seat-of-the-pantsters”). I’m an outliner. Mostly, I outline because I’m lazy. I hate rewriting; I hate watching my burst of pride and relief at the end of a novel dissipate in a realization of a hole-riddled plot. I’d much rather know where I’m going from the beginning, rather than trying to force my foreshadowing and plot twists into the text somewhere in my second draft. It’s much easier to spend a few weeks rewriting an outline than it is to spend a few months to a year rewriting an entire draft.