WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Grammar Minute: Why You Shouldn't Plan

Episode Date: March 29, 2025

If you're writing something long, like a book or a research paper, I argue you shouldn't bother outlining. Learn why on today's episode of Grammar Minute!

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we're saving the English language 60 seconds at a time. I'm Lauren Smith, and I recently wrote a science fiction book about living inside a video game. It's called War Safe, and it comes out this summer. Someone recently asked me how much of the book I planned in advance. My answer was pretty much none. It basically wrote itself. When planning a long piece of writing like a book, it's important to keep the overall point at the forefront of the story. That point is usually the culmination of the plot, or the central claim of a non-conference,

non-fiction piece. You should be able to express this in one sentence. In WarSafe's case, this became the tagline, play, win, survive. That's the whole plot. If you plan too much, you won't be able to make changes on the fly when you're fully immersed in the logic of your story and can see the trees inside the plot forest. Some of the best ideas can crop up spontaneously and you have to adapt. That's your Grammar Minute. Visit thegrammerminut.com for more tips and