The day I stopped outlining and started asking my characters dumb questions

I used to spend two weeks mapping every chapter of a novel before writing a single line. Then last month I tried something different for a short story. I just wrote the opening scene with no plan, and when my character did something stupid like hiding a key under a rock, I asked myself why she would do that. That question led to a whole backstory about her dad losing keys constantly. Suddenly the story wrote itself in three days flat, and it was way better than anything I had outlined. The outline was me trying to control everything, but the dumb questions let the character breathe. Has anyone else ditched their planning method after one accidental experiment? What kind of random question unlocked your story?

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harper_smith4d ago

It's funny you mention the key under the rock thing because I had almost the exact same moment last year. I was writing this scene where my guy was supposed to just leave a note for his roommate, but instead he hid it in a cereal box. I stopped and asked why he wouldn't just leave it on the table, and it turned out he was scared of his roommate finding out he was moving out. That one dumb question turned a boring scene into a whole subplot about him lying about his new job and his brother being the real reason he was leaving. Now I just write the first dumb thing that happens and then I interrogate it like it owes me money. It's honestly so much faster than my old way where I'd scrap everything because the outline felt wrong by chapter five.