“Commitment = Destiny”

“He singled out aspects of Quality such as unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on; kept each of these as poorly defined as Quality itself, but demonstrated them by the same class reading techniques. He showed how the aspect of Quality called unity, the hanging-togetherness of a story, could be improved with a technique called an outline. The authority of an argument could be jacked up with a technique called footnotes, which gives authoritative reference. Outlines and footnotes are standard things taught in all freshman composition classes, but now as devices for improving Quality they had a purpose. And if a student turned in a bunch of dumb references or a sloppy outline that showed he was just fulfilling an assignment by rote, he could be told that while his paper may have fulfilled the letter of the assignment it obviously didn’t fulfill the goal of Quality, and was therefore worthless.”

“She'd cried over a broken heart before. She knew what that felt like, and it didn't feel like this. Her heart felt not so much broken as just ... empty. It felt like she was an outline empty in the middle. The outline cried senselessly for the absent middle. The past cried for the present that was nothing.”

“Outlining is like putting on training wheels. It gives me the courage to write, but we always go off the outline.”

“For all my longer works (i.e. the novels) I write chapter outlines so I can have the pleasure of departing from them later on.”

“In the world of your story, your outline is like the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, your characters are all Atheists.”

“To Outline Natural Limitations Of The Universe Is To Engage Mathematical Laws”

“Create time for yourself... There are 24 hours in a day... Outline the number to spend on your dreams every day!”

“Commitment = Destiny”

“Clearly outline your plans, acknowledge God and he will direct them for you. If you can have it planned, you can achieve it; if you have it planned big, you will achieve it big. Make your choice!”

“HOW TO DRIVE A WRITER CRAZY“1. When he starts to outline a story, immediately give him several stories just like it to read and tell him three other plots. This makes his own story and his feeling for it vanish in a cloud of disrelated facts."2. When he outlines a character, read excerpts from stories about such characters, saying that this will clarify the writer's ideas. As this causes him to lose touch with the identity he felt in his character by robbing him of individuality, he is certain to back away from ever touching such a character."3. Whenever the writer proposes a story, always mention that his rate, being higher than other rates of writers in the book, puts up a bar to his stories."4. When a rumor has stated that a writer is a fast producer, invariably confront him with the fact with great disapproval, as it is, of course, unnatural for one human being to think faster than another."5. Always correlate production and rate, saying that it is necessary for the writer to do better stories than the average for him to get any consideration whatever."6. It is a good thing to mention any error in a story bought, especially when that error is to be editorially corrected, as this makes the writer feel that he is being criticized behind his back and he wonders just how many other things are wrong."7. Never fail to warn a writer not to be mechanical, as this automatically suggests to him that his stories are mechanical and, as he considers this a crime, wonders how much of his technique shows through and instantly goes to much trouble to bury mechanics very deep—which will result in laying the mechanics bare to the eye."8. Never fail to mention and then discuss budget problems with a writer, as he is very interested."9. By showing his vast knowledge of a field, an editor can almost always frighten a writer into mental paralysis, especially on subjects where nothing is known anyway."10. Always tell a writer plot tricks, as they are not his business.”