The Process Entry

I may be jumping the gun with this, but I really want to write it so here I go.

Keep in mind, this is about exactly what it looks like. I've written a book. That book has yet to succeed or fail, I have no idea if people are actually going to like it or if they'll hate it and throw rotten fruit at me (but if they do the latter I would like to know who those people are and how they are sending things through the internet because I desperately want that technology).

This is in no way me saying this is how you should do it. What works for one person won't necessarily work for someone else. But this is how it worked for me, and if you're where I was last year and haven't found a method that does it might be worth a shot.

I kneel before the power of the almighty outline.

I know, it's strict and not easy to alter once you get it written down and then it's hard to come up with new things in the middle of writing--except it isn't. I ended up with a good bit of content that wasn't in the outline by the end of the book--I know, I know. I started off as totally anti-outline too, but I have seen the light and I am a believer.

It's gotten to the point that I want at least a detailed enough outline to know how many chapters I'm going to have, the projected word count for each one, and what's going to happen in those chapters as well as what points of view they're going to contain.

Not necessarily so far as "every last scene", but it can help.

At least know how the scene you're writing is going to end before you start writing it. That way you won't have to delete and rewrite over and over again. That has been the death of many a poor project of mine.

So I look at it like I'm laying bricks. One scene at a time. It's not so much word by word or paragraph by paragraph, as it is in terms of scenes and foundations. With an outline, it's easier to figure out what I need to build up on to make the ending make sense. This reveal leads to that build leads to one facet of the climax and it all comes together like a steeple.

I recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Scene-Crafting-Powerful-Story-ebook/dp/B00506VMC4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386090968&sr=8-1&keywords=make+a+scene

I can honestly say I learned a lot more from that right there in the week it took me to read it than I did just tinkering around for years before that.

For the most part that's all I got. This journal turned into a sermon of "Praise the almighty outline", but that's okay. That's basically my process.

Fortune Favors,
Megan