Ben Matlock Demonstrates the Importance of Outlining in Writing

CBS recently revived Matlock with Kathy Bates as its lead, but its namesake ran on NBC and ABC for nine seasons from 1986-1995. Each episode would usually culminate with defense attorney Ben Matlock (Andy Griffith) helping his client overcome a murder charge by getting the real killer on the witness stand and breaking down how they committed their crime. He also did it in such a folksy and bumbling manner that by the time the murderer realized what he was up to, it was too late.

I loved Matlock, watched it every week when I was a kid, and will not change the channel if I come across it on TV today. If this scene doesn’t make you smile, I worry that you might be taking life too seriously.

In the season four episode, “The Best Seller”, Matlock is defending the husband of romance novelist Cynthia Slayton (Tricia O’Neil) on the charge of murdering her best friend. When he has Slayton on the stand toward the end of the show, the following exchange takes place.

Ben Matlock: When you write a novel, do you start with an outline?

Cynthia Slayton: Oh yes. Sometimes the outline is 60-70 pages long. I can't start a novel until I know where it's going to wind up.

That is true for a novel and ultimately for any piece of writing. Mapping out what you want to say on the front end will help save you time and make any project less daunting. If you decide you want to adjust in the middle of writing the piece, making changes will also likely be easier because you have a road map laid out and are now simply adjusting directions.

[Spoiler alert:] Like the novelist he was questioning, Matlock had an outline for where he wanted to go and ended up slowly making the case that Slayton wanted to murder her sister because she was having an affair with her husband. In the end, she accidentally killed her friend.

When I wrote this post, I also knew where I wanted to end it and that was with the finale of this episode. In it, Julie March (Julie Sommars) reads a steamy passage from Slayton’s novel to Matlock’s assistant Les Calhoun (Don Knotts). Enjoy!

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