Huzzah for Outlines!
Some writers love outlines, some hate them, some simply acknowledge their usefulness. Whichever group you fall into when writing on your own, you’ll find that when you work with a writing partner, an outline is your new best friend.
There probably are successful collaborations that just wing it, but that way is inefficient. In order for both partners to write simultaneously, there needs to be an understanding of where the plot is going. An outline will be your guide, showing you where your scene should begin and where it should end so that it will mesh with the scene your partner is writing. The outline also helps you track your progress and manage your time (beneficial for a soloist, too). It helps you divvy up the work, because you can see which sections feature the elements that each partner has the right “touch” with.
A good friend of ours argues that outlining a story takes away all of the creativity and spontaneity. We say that’s just not true. An outline should only constrain your wildest impulses while still allowing you creative freedom. You know that your scene begins with your hero and heroine having breakfast at a diner and ends with one of them being kidnapped off the street. That leaves a lot of room in the middle for you to be as inventive as you want to be.
The conversations that lead up to the creation of the outline are where you get to go crazy. Brainstorm as many plot twists, character quirks, and complications as you want, then work with your writing partner to cull the best and shape them into a story you both love.
The level of detail in your outline will depend on the type of story you are writing, the number of characters you feature, and the needs of your collaboration. Don’t get hung up on formalities. There’s no reason to force your story into a traditional outline form, with roman numerals and multiple nested subsections. Do that if you want, or structure it more like a synopsis. It can be a series of short paragraphs, or one huge string of “and then this happens, and then this happens.” It can be as detailed or as sketchy as you and your writing partner want. The level of detail can even vary throughout. Perhaps there’s a big scene where you can picture in your mind exactly how everything happens. Go ahead and include all those delicious details in your outline. But if there’s a scene where all you know is that it gets your antagonist from Point A to Point B, that’s fine too. That’s where you (or your writing partner) will get to be creative later. And remember, you can always revise the outline as you write.