Well, I'm writing along, see, and I realise the conflict between my hero and a minor villain isn't strong enough. She's standing there twiddling her evil little fingers... well, she's floating, and they're long three-jointed fingers, actually, but...
So she's forming her nefarious plan. And I decided her plan just wasn't... well... evil enough. Either to carry the scene or to make her interesting, beyond the floating and the spooky finger twiddling.
Oh, noes!! I'll have to change some of the plot! Whatever shall I do?
I figure out a few really, truly eeevil ideas that'll make it work. And, because I have an outline... well, it's actually a twenty-page mess of scenes and point of view switches and character motivations and story arcs, but for simplicity's sake, we'll call it an outline...
...because I have an outline, I can see at a glance exactly where those changes have to happen, and how they'll affect the rest of the story.
A few slashes of my red pen -- well, it's a pink pen, actually, and I ask you, how many people have a pink pen?? -- a few pink slashes, and I'm done. Easy peasy. No sweat. Fixed. Ta-da!!
Pantsers, you so don't know what you're missing. Bwahahaha.
So, writers, are you a plotter or a make-it-up-as-you-go-er? How would you approach
Me, I love me them outlines :)
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