One does simply not write without an outline… or do they?
Yes. They absolutely do.
I used to believe every story needed a meticulous roadmap. Color-coded notes. Character sheets. Timelines. Chapter breakdowns. I would spend weeks outlining, rearranging plot points, perfecting backstories no reader would ever see. By the time I finally started drafting, I was exhausted. Worse—I was bored. I’d already told myself the story.
Now, I spend far less time outlining and far more time writing. And for me, that shift has made all the difference.
Writing without an outline doesn’t mean beginning with nothing. It doesn’t mean wandering blindly across a blank page, hoping something coherent appears. It simply means beginning with something small. A spark instead of a blueprint. A question instead of a map.
For me, that spark often comes in the form of a what if.
What if Belle wasn’t the beauty in the fairytale—but the beast?
That single question became the foundation for my short story Stealing Beauty, published in 2019 by Iron Faerie Publishing in their FABLE anthology. I didn’t start with a three-act structure. I started with tension. With inversion. With curiosity. And as I followed that thread, scene by scene, the story revealed itself.
That same approach works for novels, too.
The idea for my forthcoming novel, Dandelions, began with an image: a yellow dandelion pushing stubbornly up through the grass beneath a wrought iron fence. Something fragile forcing its way into a place it wasn’t meant to grow. Something bright in a space meant to contain it.
My children used to love making wishes on dandelions when they were little. They’d close their eyes, blow the seeds into the air, and believe with their whole hearts that something magical might happen.
There’s story in that. Hope. Confinement. Resilience. Wishes. Loss. Memory.
I didn’t outline a plot first. I followed the feeling.
That’s the beauty of starting small. A single image. A single question. A single moment heavy with possibility. From there, you ask more questions. You explore consequences. You let characters react. You allow the story to surprise you.
Some writers thrive on detailed outlines. They build cathedrals before laying the first stone. And that’s wonderful.
But others—myself included—build as they go. We discover the shape of the cathedral while standing inside it.
Writing inspiration comes from anywhere: a childhood memory, a passing comment, a photograph, a fairytale turned sideways. You don’t need a long, elaborate outline before you begin. You need curiosity. You need momentum. You need permission to start before you feel fully ready.
Sometimes the best way to find your story is simply to begin writing it.
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