Are you bored of me talking about my outline yet?

I have a headache, so this will be a short post where I ramble on about the Snowflake Method some more.

Step Six's four page outline has grown into a six page outline - however I think this is mostly because it's supposed to be four typed pages, and I'm writing longhand. It's almost done now - just the black moment and resolution to detail. Several more steps to go, and this is already the most detailed outline I've ever written.

The next step after that is even more detailed character work, and then what basically amounts to notecarding - a list of one sentance descriptions of scenes. I hope to cover both of those in the next few days.

Then comes step nine - which amounts to telling the story, because what you do is summarise each scene instead of writing it as a scene. That means there will probably be a couple of pages of outline per chapter. It's basically a draft 0.5 of the novel. Goodness knows how long that will take, but I hope to be done with it by the end of July. Mainly because I want to outline another idea in August. I suppose nothing is stopping me from co-outlining two projects at once, but it might confuse me - I confuse easily.

The final step is step 10 - write your novel. I'm currently thinking of trying to write this one in September as a dry run for NaNoWriMo to check I can actually write a novel from an outline like this. If I do I'll keep you informed here.

Making the antagonist's case

I'm still on Step Five of the Snowflake outlines. I'm currently writing the antagonist's outline and should be ready to start Step Six by sometime tomorrow. Since I have another long weekend off work this weekend I can hopefully get a good chunk of it done this weekend.

But writing a one page outline of the storyline from the antagonist's perspective is an interesting exercise. It forces you to think about why they are opposing the protagonist. People don't - in general - do things for no reason. Outlining for the antagonist can make any holes in their motives become obvious to you. This antagonist has a far more interesting motive for his actions than in my original idea now. In fact from a certain perspective he's not even wrong - it's what he does as a result of his conclusions that's the problem. It's proving fun as well.

I think that if you are worrying about the possibility that your antagonist might be two-dimensional doing an outline from their perspective which makes their case would be an excellent exercise.

If you do try it don't forget to comment and tell me.

Preparing for July and beyond (aka Editing Plans)

I've been preparing for the edit of "The Sundered Light" in July today. While I won't be starting the actual editing until July 1st there's plenty I can do to be ready.

So far I have:

1. Printed out the first 104 pages of the Manuscript ready for Wednesday. This is a short novel at 61k and that's nearly half of it.
2. Located my red pens and a couple of folders to use.
3. Tried and failed to locate my highlighters. I'll have to buy some - which likely means on Thursday with the hours I work.
4. Realised an entire scene was missing from Chapter 18 and added it from the notebook. I won't get to chapter 18 until late July/early August, so it'll have time to rest anyway.

What I intend to do in July and early August is spend two or three days on each chapter. The first day I will check that everything is coherent and change anything that needs changing to fit. Then the next day I will go through the chapter using the checklists from "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" to spot and correct problems. I expect this to take a day or so depending on the length of the chapter and the number of problems I find.

I hope that by doing this I will - by mid-August - have a much stronger manuscript. It can then rest again until October when I plan to use the exercises from the "Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook" to strengthen it some more. Then it can rest while I do NaNoWriMo in November before I go over it with the Self-Editing checklists again to check the stuff I added during October.

In early 2010 I'll be looking for critical readers. Volunteers welcome - even at this early stage.

Nearly the end of June...

I don't think I'm going to finish "Opening" this month. I'm beginning to think the whole thing is a dubious concept for a story. It's more like an extended exercise in worldbuilding. Good for me since it fleshes out one of my universes, but not really publication fodder. It's kind of like Star Wars Episode One - it's only interesting if you know what happens next. That's why it was getting busy - I knew something was wrong and was trying to make it more interesting (and failing spectacularly). I'll probably finish it at some point, but I'm not going to rush it. And, hey, extended back story and worldbuilding may not be for readers but it's useful, so it's not a waste of effort.

Outlining is going better. I'm going to try using a method in the writing book I'm currently reading, and which I'll be reviewing this Wednesday. If it goes well I should have the outline for "Healing the Sunbird" done by Wednesday.

So, while at this point in June it doesn't look like I'll finish everything I'd hoped to by the end of the month, it has been productive enough.

Now my plans for July are much simpler. I intend to edit my fantasy novel "The Sundered Light". It won't be ready after this round of edits, but it should be much better. I'll probably do some more Outlining of ideas as well.

Falling Behind again

I've already fallen a bit behind with my plans. *sigh*

I have written more on "Opening" and started the outline on "Healing the Sunbird" but I'm not finished. I'll have a go at catching up tomorrow. If this means I can't move onto the third outline this weekend so be it, as long as it's done by the end of June.

It's not even Writer's Block anymore. I just got distracted. I'll do some before bed.

Plans for the long weekend.

The long weekend - with it's almost unlimited writing and outlining time lies ahead of me. If I can just defeat the demon of procrastination I intend to get a lot done over the next four days.

Tonight I'm going to do the first part of the outline for "Healing the Sunbird". Since all I have is a basic idea and a pile of world building for this one it's going to be interesting to see if I can make a coherent outline over the weekend.

Tomorrow I'm going to take on the fight scene in "Opening". The middle may have gone a bit to pot, but if I can get the start and ending right I think the middle will fall into place during the rewrite in August. I'll also do the second part of the outlining for "Healing the Sunbird". Will try to put together a list of question for my Cryptozoologist contact.

Saturday - More work on "Opening" - I want to try and get the first draft with all it's lumps, bumps and false starts done by Saturday evening. Hopefully send questions to contact.

Sunday - More work on "Opening" and on the "Healing the Sunbird" outline if they aren't finished. Possibly start work on the "There Might be Dragons" outline if the answers to my questions are back. If not start work on reoutlining "Firebird's Song".

Monday - Absolutely must finish "Opening" if I haven't already. Also get whichever outline I started on Sunday finished.

Taking my own advice

Yesterday I blogged about Writer's Block and tricks I use to overcome it. Today I was still feeling low and blocked up with regards to writing so I took my own advice and headed out to the park with my notes to work on the outline of "The King's Head". An hour later I headed home with a completed outline in tow. It's a little sketchy in the middle but my outlines often are. I know roughly what's got to happen between the beginning and the end and that's what matters.

One down two to go in the outline stakes.

Next up "Healing the Sunbird". Target - as well as finishing writing "Opening" do this one this weekend.

And amazingly I've actually found a cryptozoologist to ask questions of for the reseach for "There Might be Dragons". I found them on Twitter of all places. Now I just need to sort my questions out. This is the story least likely to be successfully outlined by the end of June as I have so much information gathering to do.

Now I just need to do some writing on "Opening" and today will go down as a success.

Writing Update

Things have slowed down to a crawl at the moment. Partly because my computer is acting up (it's rather old) and partly because I seem to have developed writers block - it happens to us all sometimes. I may have to do a post about dealing with it tomorrow.

I also may have to do some purge writing before it clears. Some of my old stories that need sorting out, re-outlining and re-writing won't leave me alone at the moment. Which is annoying when I want to work on the newer stuff. I'm sticking to my initial plan for June at the moment - I have a long weekend off work next weekend so I'll put in a concerted writing effort then. By a purge I mean write a scene in my head that's not to do with any of the stories I'm currently working on, because it won't leave me alone until I do. I'll probably do some of that before bed tonight.

Tuesday is my normal day off and I intend to spend it outlining. I need to get moving on the outlines if I'm to have them done by the end of June. The one for "The King's Head" is half done but I haven't even started the others yet. Then next weekend I'll really put in a push to finish "Opening". If I manage that I will work on re-outlining "Firebird's Song". If not I'll keep plugging away at it and do "Firebird's Song" in July. July is also edit "The Sundered Light" month.

So I'm sorted out until the end of July hopefully.

Short Stories shouldn't be this complicated

I've hit an interesting problem with "Opening" (yeah I dropped the 'The'). There's just too much happening for a short story or even a novelette. I'm either going to have to drop some things, or increase it to novella length in order to make it coherent.

I almost think the problem is too much Worldbuilding - I know all the people and groups who would react to what the protagonist is doing and can't justify not dealing with them. It looked okay in the outline but now it seems manic. For now the thing is to get what I have typed in and finish it and sort it out in the rewrite.

On the upside I'm halfway through the outline of "The King's Head". It should be finished before bed. And no way is this story going to be excessively long - it's far simpler even with the complication I've added. Given that my targets for June, as defined in this post, are merely to finish the first draft of "Opening" and outline three other stories by the end of this month I'm well on the way to fulfilling my goals. I'm actually considering adding 'write the first draft of "The King's Head"' and 're-outline "Firebird's Song" (my 2007 NaNo which needs to be made coherent)' to my June project list. I'll see how I'm doing on Sunday evening and then decide.

So where am I at?

So where am I at with this writing game?

Well my first completed novel first draft is sitting on my hard drive and a flash drive (backup backup I'm never losing a load of what I've written again). It'll likely stay there untouched for another couple of months and then it will be hit with the edit stick.

At the moment I'm trying to get to grips with the art and science of short story writing. I've never been very good at short story writing - they always grow out of control - so it's time to get to grips with that.

Just this weekend I finally finished the second draft of a werewolf short story "Moonlight and Memories" (terrible working title that I can't seem to come up with an alternative to) that's been in the offing for ages. Well at 7,742 words it's more of a novelette but it's one of the shortest things I've ever written and hopefully I can shave a bit more off it in the next edit.

Today I'm looking at an outline for a futuristic fantasy short story/novelette I outlined ages ago and trying to work up a head of steam to start writing it. Starting is the hardest bit I find. I hate staring at blank paper. It's called "The Opening" and it's very very weird.

I'm also at various stages of brewing up outlines for three other short stories.

• "The King's Head" is a ghost story that's been in my head for a while and just needs a little push to come out onto paper in outline form at least. The title refers to the pub where it is set not a decapitated monarch.
  
• "Healing the Sunbird" is a full blown fantasy but very vague as yet. I know the set up and have an idea of the ending but I'm not sure how I'm getting from A to B yet.
• "There Might be Dragons" is - hum - a slightly historical contemporary fantasy mystery set in a very exclusive boarding school in the 1970s. And it actually does involve a dragon and a nosey cryptozoologist, but no magic. At least not that is referred to as magic - I am not getting into the Psi as magic (where magic means unscientific) debate. It's natural in my world the real world doesn't count. There certainly no Harry Potter ripping off here trust me. (And I wouldn't even be worried if I hadn't mentioned the words Boarding School). Anyway this one needs a lot of research. I know sweet FA about Boarding Schools beyond Enid Blyton, and I doubt that's a good source.

It's mid-May now and I intend to have at least finished the first draft of "The Opening" and outlined the other three by the end of June.

So that's basically where I'm at for now.