This is KAMWylant, and you are listening to the 75th episode of the Word Play podcast.

Outlines are lovely things.

I'd be lost without my roadmap to show me the safe path through the chaos of my story worlds.

But the one place where my outlines almost always proved fallible is in the final chapters.

The order of scenes, the choreography of character movements that I thought was going

to happen in a particular way, always manages to look completely different from a distance than it does by the time I get up close.

Right now I'm standing on the brink of the climax in my work in progress, the deepest breath, and realizing once again that my outline is going to need

some restructuring to accommodate the demands of the characters.

This week I'm taking a break from writing and going back to read what I've written so far, so that I can

orientate myself in the story and move forward with a clear sense of what lays behind.

Internal and external conflict, the killer combination.

The latest post in the video series on my blog shows how to use the two sides of conflict to bring your stories to a stunning conclusion.

You can watch the video on my blog at wordplay-K-M-Y-L-N-D. blog spot.

New videos are posted every Wednesday.

Meanwhile, enjoy this week's podcast.

Description, friend or foe.

Nothing bores me faster than description. You've probably heard readers make that comment.

Perhaps you've even made it yourself. In the face of the modern impatience with pages or

even paragraphs of descriptive narrative, it's easy for writers to overreact

and decide to avoid description altogether.

After all, we can't afford to do anything that might alienate readers.

But today I'm here to offer a shocking declaration.

...