h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I do remember writing my dissertation that way; outline, bullet points, paragraphs, then finally fleshing it all out by the end.

These days when I do write creatively it only tends to be very short stories of a single scene (maybe only a couple of hundred words?) but even then, having an idea of what's important and where things should start and finish tends to make for a better story.

My most recent little story was very difficult, because I was narrating what happened at a Dungeons and Dragons session. All the plot and combat seemed perfectly well balanced while we were playing, but turning out into prose after the event was a challenge (which I don't think I rose to but hey, practice is the key, right?).

I'm not sure where I'm going with this post now... I should have written an outline.

Brilliant! One might almost think you planned that...

That's a good point about practice being the key - I think that's one reason we use all this virtual scrap paper around here, and bounce off each other.

Never used to outline. Learned the hard way that was bad. Now I work out the structure in advance, if my intention is to write something lengthy (more than, oh, I don't know, 15,000 words). (There's a good free project management tool called Trello which I find useful for heavy plotting/structuring.) Have just started experimenting with writing a treatment before doing the plot in detail.

What a good idea, using Trello for that - the Guide Editors use it, too. Thanks for the tip!