Guest Writer Michele Marie

I’ve been a College Writing Tutor now for a while. I help college students write papers… all sorts of papers.

One thing that has become very clear: if I can help the student create some kind of tentative  (and very simple) outline, before they’ve even begun to write, then they will save precious time and have an organized, planned paper.  The alternative is that they might create a lot of irrelevant pages and paragraphs that they have to cut out and throw out later, and be very confused about what direction they can take their writing.

When a student comes in who hasn’t either begun or gotten very far on their paper, I encourage them to plot their paper before they begin or continue actually writing.

When possible, we’ll discuss the opening hook, or topic sentence… a tentative thesis or two, and plot out what will be in the subsequent paragraphs and conclusion…all BEFORE they’ve begun the actual writing.

I’ve seen how much easier it is for the student to follow through once they have a plan to write with a map of sorts.

I don’t know how many of the writers on these WordPress blogs (who are writing novels) just write without stopping, waiting to know where the characters will take them, or who have a general plan (and even know the ENDING of their story – before they begin writing).

Many of us know that Stephen King NEVER uses an outline.  On the other hand, J. K. Rowling does outline her novels.

As for myself, now that I’ve worked with so many writers on so many different types of papers, I will always recommend an outline, whether it be for a 5-paragraph school essay or a 300-page novel. As far as shorter pieces like blog posts, then I channel my inner Stephen King and just write!

We’d like to thank Michele Marie for this post. She has an amazing website called Michele Marie’s Poetry By The Fireside…Stop by and take a look—you’ll be amazed!