I confess to being the type of writer that sits at the keyboard with only the barest wisp of an idea before plunging ahead.  The voices in my head tell me what to do next.  Wait.  That didn’t sound right.  My story characters’ voices in my head tell me what to do next.  Better.

My attempts at outlines feel like Doctor Frankenstein’s creation but not as handsome or talented at tap-dancing.  I’ve tried to create outlines.  Really.  Many times.  In different mediums and multiple colors. I’ve built my skeletons, even grown some flesh on them.  But what comes shambling out is not what I intended at all

.

And they all want to eat my brain.

Okay, maybe it just feels like they want to chomp on my grey matter.  The theory of outlining a story is a solid one; it makes perfect sense, and seems like an exceedingly logical way to proceed.  The problem is that, like zombies, outlines are scary partially-formed things chasing after you with serious noshing on their minds or stomachs, whatever.  The thought of writing to an outline is like that of a zombie eagerly sucking brains through a straw sticking out of a hole in my head – akin to a coconut husk cocktail on Tiki night at the Luau.

So why do something if it doesn’t work for me?  I have a guilty little squirmy feeling that I haven’t really given outlining a chance.  And I might be missing out on a really good thing.  The zombie might not be unredeemable.  Like the zombie guy in Warm Bodies, there might be a heartbeat under the disintegrating skin of its chest.  So, I want to believe.  I want to believe that the magical properties of outlining will be able to transform the zombie into a hot guy, uh, I mean, into a useful member of society (no, I really meant hot guy).  I’m going to try it one more time.  Maybe more than once.  And if I have any brain matter left after that, I’ll call it a success and be enlightened to the joys of structure.  Unfortunately, just typing that last sentence made something dribble out of my ear.  Well, let’s see what happens.

This said, I was surprised to find that it was helpful to have a visual aid to see what was happening on the page. Just looking at the different colors in a holistic manner (oooh see the pretty highlighter colors…) allowed me to get a good idea if my narrative was doing the job I wanted it to do for the scene. Too much backstory or internal musings would result in looking at a big puddle of yellow

. I learned to avoid those when my puppies were being house-trained, I learned to avoid them on the page.

In the beginning I groused to my unlucky table partners about the mega-horrendous thought of highlighting my entire manuscript-in-progress. But after some internal processing and a few sugary treats, I started to see the wisdom of the process. It was a struggle, but now I have to admit I feel a teensy bit of excitement, a little surge of adrenaline causing tingly sensations all over my body, when I pull out my handful of bright highlighters and get ready to mark up a scene.