Going To Hell...Who's Coming With Me?

But I just spent the past two hours explaining plot/backstory/character relationships in the piece I'm currently struggling with in terms of "well, they took out the healer, and that split the tank and DPS up", and I actually think the story arc makes the most sense that way.

...I am reluctantly resigning myself to the sad fact that, if I want to produce a novel in a reasonable period of time - or at all - I am going to have to learn some method of outlining that works for me. As opposed to all the books that kill my ideas and desire to write dead.

(Honestly, at this point I feel like the moment the word "theme" appears in the table of contents, I should just accept that the book won't work for me.)

I may also have spent 1600 words freewriting/brainstorming/crying over my utter inability to write the way I could a decade ago.

For a while, it seemed like everyone on the writing forums I frequent was recommending Take Off Your Pants as THE book to teach so-called "pantsers" how to outline. Hell, in the initial rush of reading it, I might have recommended it to people; I don't, honestly, remember. If I did, I don't regret it, because she obviously has advice that works for a lot of people.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work FOR ME.

I was reminded of this yesterday, when - as part of my week-long-and-counting bout of depression and writerly angst - I decided I was going to write the blurb for The Fantasy Story I'm Not Allowed To Write Because Porn Makes Money. And lo! did I discover I owned Libbie Hawker's Gotta Read It: Five Simple Steps to a Fiction Pitch that Sells.

( Because this got LONG and there's a table under here. )

So, I'm not throwing any shade at Libbie Hawker, her books, or her method. But, for me, whether it's her approach to what makes a story, the actual method of breaking down plot, or just the way my brain parses the method, her stuff doesn't work and winds up being actively destructive.

Which, I suppose, is why there are fifty gazillion books on writing out there.