Writing without an outline.

Some folks outline their novels, some folks don’t — and there are those in each camp who feel strongly that their way is the best way. I don’t think people on either side of the debate have much of a case. How a writer writes is determined as much by his or her personality as what a writer writes, and trying to do it in a way that feels unnatural won’t help anybody.

That said, I do it without an outline, despite the fact that my plots tend to be rather complex. Once I have some clue as to the story I want to tell, the most important thing for me, before I begin is, to

Know the Ending.

This is even more important, as far as I’m concerned, than knowing the beginning. If you know what everything is leading to, after all, it’s easier to get there.

I should say now that I’m never exactly right in my guess about how a novel will turn out, I’m always surprised along the way, but that’s not particularly important — what’s important is having a direction to head in. Knowing that direction, I can now focus on and

Perfect the Beginning.

I spend a disproportionate amount of time on the first hundred pages or so, but — for me — doing so is important. Essential, even.

First, it allows me to get to know the characters. If I understand the characters, I’ll be able to predict better how they’ll react to things I foresee happening later on in the story.

Second, it allows me to set up everything that happens later, everything that leads to the end I foresee, and it allows me to set it all up even if I don’t really know how each set-up might pay off.

The way this works is simple, really: write stuff that will later have consequences.

This is how to figure out where a novel opens. Find the spot where something out-of-the-ordinary first happens, something that will have consequences throughout the rest of the novel. If you have some idea as to who your characters are, and what their day-to-day lives might be like (and I think you should), this is a pretty easy moment to find.

My novel The Dispatcher begins with a phone call: Ian Hunt is less than an hour from the end of his shift when he gets the call from his dead daughter.

Clearly an out-of-the-ordinary event that raises many questions. Why is his daughter dead? How is she calling him if she’s dead? Where is she calling from? What is he going to do about it?

Some of those I answer immediately, but the big question I do not, and the big question is: Will he get her back?

But that is, of course, only the beginning.

If writing a story can be compared (briefly) to a sort of slow-motion juggling — you throw things into the air, creating suspense for the reader, who doesn’t know if you’ll manage to catch them — then the big question with which you begin a novel is the chainsaw. It’s the piece you keep in the air; chuck it as high as possible and let it hang.

Meanwhile you keep juggling smaller questions.

In The Dispatcher, the opening phone call ends with a scream. As soon as the main character’s daughter reveals that she is, in fact, alive, she disappears again.

While retrieving her after her brief escape, her kidnapper drives his truck into a fence and dozens of dogs run loose. Those dogs are another thing tossed into the air to be caught later. Something will happen with them.

And so on.

The first hundred pages is getting everything into the air.

If you’ve got enough big stuff hanging over your head, hanging over your characters’ heads, you’ve got a novel.

Once I have everything set up, once I have the first hundred pages put together, the rest of the novel is relatively easy. Not actually easy, of course, but relative to the beginning? Yeah.

Each day I sit down and write, dealing with the consequences of the set-up. But in order to do that well, I try to make sure I

Know What’s Being Accomplished in Each Scene.

There are those who think getting words on the page is more important than what those words are. I am not among them. I think it’s possible, especially if you’re writing without an outline, to get so far off track that starting over from the beginning is easier than fixing what’s already there, and that’s a disheartening position to be in, one I try very hard to avoid.

So before I write a scene, I think about why I’m writing it and how it’ll affect the story, and if it won’t affect the story, either by pushing the plot forward, or in a new direction, or by changing how a character will react to his or her situation, it doesn’t belong in the book.

If it does belong, I write it.

Eventually, doing this every day, I get to the end, and once there I find I usually have a pretty well put-together first draft. Certainly something I can work with.

Then the real fun can begin: polishing what’s there.

Anyway, I know this isn’t the only way to approach a novel, but, so far, it’s the way that seems to have worked best for me.