 |
| the most beautiful thing |
First light and a wet moon smiles down on me from the top of the sky. When "the 'horns' of the crescent moon point up at an angle, away from the horizon . . . the moon's crescent takes on the appearance of a bowl or a smile." So it's a pleasant AM to have insomnia and continue working on my sci-fi/ fantasy young adult novel.
A word on my new method of outlining. On a blank Word screen, I wrote out 22 chapter headings. I choose the number at random as a starting point. With characters and a rough idea of where things are heading, I add stream-of-consciousness info to chapters. For example: here is Chapter 10:
"Four days later. Panic stricken Lysander despite having half
the Light Horse camped on the outskirts. A small party sent forward, including
Boris, Tambara, the sub-commander from the relief of the Dressel watch tower,
and a political operative in charge; a nice enough older man, but very
dogmatic, urging him not to antagonize the Veen under any circumstances. And to
translate exactly everything that he says.
Tambara forces her way into the treaty party. Hopes Boris
isn’t mad at her for refusing to take the honorarium and letter down to Lambert
and Holly. "
These info nuggets serve as mental markers. Often, I will experiment with different outcomes to each situation, listing two or three possibilities. Right now, I'm up to almost 30 pages of scenes, dialogue, back story, etc. When I finish, I'll sort through and see what manner of story I can whip up. Next comes:
Time line.
Map the world.
First Draft
Research
Second Draft
A lot more drafts.
Beta reads.
Polish.
Send out to publishing house.
Continue until a sale is made.
Who needs sleep?
(Note: Now the Cheshire Moon has retired from sight for the day.)
4 comments:
Sleep? SLEEP? We don't need no stinking sleep!
I love your idea. Congrats on getting over the hump. And don't worry, the ideas will stop coming when your brain figures, "Forget this! I'm going to bed!" Until then, good sir, that is why God created CAFFEINE . I think He did it in the middle of the 5th day to get Himself through the 6th day. Makes sense to me.
Forgot to mention.... count me in for a sale.
Good use of your time. My outlining method involves assembling any number of plodding paragraphs per chapter (usually a total of just under thirty ch./book) -- this happens and then this happens... I find the fun, inventive stuff comes up when I'm doing the first draft.
Best of luck on your novel! One of my favorite genres to read and write.
Fuzzy Bunny Slippers: Thanks, you're in.
Roger: A little good stuff happens now, but, I think you're right: the fun starts on the first draft.
Post a Comment