Any authentic story has to come from the writer's gut (i.e. the pre-verbal amalgam of experiences that shape the writer's personality, but which the writer probably isn't aware of, at least initially).
Whether writers shape their story from the prep level or from an exploratory draft, they're using a verbal strategy. The exploratory (no-planning) draft may seem more natural, but it's just as verbal as the most rigorous outline. If writers can't figure out where they're going from honest work on an outline, there's a good chance the won't be able to figure out where they're going from any number of drafts either.
Still, some writers in my experience work more productively starting from an outline, and some work better starting with an exploratory draft (preferably followed by feedback). My own approach is to write an Act 1 off the cuff and then go back and outline the story. But I'm not saying this approach will work for anyone else.
The most superficial, banal script I ever wrote was the most thoroughly prepped (though the problem may have been with the particular preparation method rather than the act of preparation itself). I followed the advice from Blake Snyder's Save the Cat faithfully: logline, theme, genre identification, note cards. I even saw myself in the protagonist. What could go wrong? (Everything.) When I published the script on an online writers' group, some of the reviewers who knew me thought I might have been having mental problems--and in fact I was: the problem of inauthenticity.
My goal in using Snyder's formula was to write a SUCCESSFUL SCRIPT. To follow the rules. To color within the lines, because the gatekeepers loved stories that stayed within the lines. No gatekeeper would have liked my formulaic script. Of that, I'm certain.
I don't know the situation of the person who asked the initial question here. But to me, it sounds as if this person is trying to write a SUCCESSFUL SCRIPT. To discover the rules for doing so.
The road to success is littered with stories that tried to attain that goal without first aligning themselves with the inner being of the writer.
That's why I find your approach so helpful, Scott: it focuses on the inner story, not the SUCCESS of the outer story.
