Outlines. Wait, What?

So today in English I wrote a story. That's totally up my alley, right?

Perhaps not.

First of all I have to say, I had a blast in class. It was a group project, which was amazing. I've never 'written' (note the quotation marks...I'll get to that) a story by collaborating with friends. It was crazy, and we were laughing a lot, and mostly it was just bananas. But it was a lot of fun. It's definitely something I would love to do again.

Now, the main thing that was NOT "up my alley" was plotting. Outlines. Pre-planning. Really, what is that? I don't understand the language you are using! See, that isn't how I write. So today, as amazingly fun as it was, was a stretch. It was a very good thing I had two classmates to throw out ideas and help write the story, because I would have been stumped and stuck and would not have known how to even begin. You see, we didn't WRITE the story. (That was the point of the quotation marks...) We made an outline. We discussed characters, wrote a sort of synopsis and planned out what would happen in the story, the major events. And that. Was that. Which was totally weird and new for me, but fun all the same. I am actually considering writing that story now, just to see how it goes. Because I've never done something like that in my life before. I'm curious to see if I can actually accomplish it.

Although...I may have to choose a different story to plot and pre-plan, because the one we came up with today was not really my type of story. Though it could be highly entertaining for me to write it.

The story we wrote is about a guy named Fred. He's from Zimbabwe and the setting is in the year 2034. Yes, we were totally making things up on the fly and going for as random as possible. Maybe that wasn't our actual thought process (let's be as random as possible) but it is kind of what happened. So, here's the story:

Fred's mother is murdered by the owner of a bank. So Fred goes to the bank teller, Louise (who happens to be in love with him) and together they rob the bank. And then they have a few crazy/weird adventures trying to get away to live happily ever after...which doesn't work out so well, being criminals and all.

There's a lot more to the story than that, actually (we went crazy in class!). But I don't want to give it all away just in case I am actually going to write it.

Anyway, I guess the point of this post (is there one?) is that I did something new today, something I actually enjoyed....and I'm curious if this new concept of writing a story will actually work for me. Because when I write, I just make it up as I go basically. That sounds terrible. Never mind. What really happens is that I read the story, the same way you would, except I am reading it at a slow pace as it appears on the screen before me. So, that didn't sound any better than the first try. I give up. I just don't pre-plan my stories. They flow out of me before I even know they exist...I don't have time to pre-plan. It's just suddenly there for me to read.

So...that last paragraph sounds rather absurd....

ANYWAY....I'm going to give this whole outlining thing a try. And I'll let you know if I succeed. :)