Some writers outline their books using index cards or Excel; they jot notes about every scene. In other words, they’re plotting their books scene by scene. I don’t know if they do the entire book all at once or if they go as far as they can before they stop to write to the end of their list of scenes.  When they feel the need, I guess, they start with the scene by scene outline again. Seems like an incredible amount of detail work to me, but I can see where it would be effective. Basically, who, what, when, and where are addressed in each scene. Actually, this method of outlining makes writing a novel seem pretty easy, doesn’t it?

My question is: do you think a writer can “over-educate” himself to the point any natural talent he has might be warped or distorted by all the rules/how-to/book learning? Does this question even make sense?