Sanderson 2012.1 - Ideas & Outlining

Brandon Sanderson’s 2012 Semester at BYU: Creative Writing, Lecture 1

This video is a mirror of the materials posted by user writeaboutdragons. I’ve linked together the parts of the lecture into a single video, and provided some notes with timestamps below. Enjoy!

*Notes*

0:12 / Introduction to being a writer
- Writing is not about inspiration, ideas, or luck
- Writing is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced
- Publishers can gauge your skill from the first page

6:55 / Course focus will be on Novel format
- If you don’t read a lot of short fiction, you shouldn’t write a lot of short fiction
- Writing short stories is no longer considered “the good way” to break into writing novels

10:25 / Ideas are cheap
- A great writer will make a great novel from bland ideas
- A weak writer will make a bad novel from the best ideas
- A book does not come from a strike of inspiration
- Jim Butcher anecdote: was given two silly ideas from an online forum challenge (Pokemon and lost roman legion), and wrote a best-selling novel

17:42 / Class format

24:37 / Discovery writers vs outliners/architects
- Learning to write is about learning the different tools available and finding ones that work for you
- Discovery writers work best without a lot of structure
- George RR Martin is this type of writer; he uses the term gardener
- Outliners work best when they know what their goal is, and they break it out into steps
- - A sequence of events or a map to help write the book
- - Orson Scott Card is this type of writer, as is Brandon Sanderson
- Outliners tend to have explosive endings because they can plan it in advance
- Most people fall into one of these camps, but you really don’t know which is better for you until you try both

31:00 / Pitfalls of each method
- Discovery writers like to revise a lot, and get it right before they move on
- - Need to learn to just keep going so they don’t get stuck
- Discovery writers have problems with endings, because they tend to finish the arcs abruptly
- Outliners have “worldbuilder’s disease”
- - Need to focus the building so they can actually write the story
- Brandon outlines his plots and discovery writes his characters

37:11 / Writing groups & workshopping
- More useful for outliners than discovery writers, because feedback can influence the undiscovered plot
- Good feedback includes a list of specific things that you liked, and a list of specific things that didn’t work for you
- “You should…” is a not a helful comment.
- Describing your reaction to something is much more helpful than telling them what you think is wrong with it
- Ignore small stuff; don’t talk about prose unless it is a big issue.
- - Plot, character, and setting are the most important things to focus on
- When you are being critiqued, do not speak! Soak it in and don’t influence the feedback.
- Put all feedback aside until you come back around to revise the book