Elizabeth Drakes's Site

Fantasy Romance

Outlines

66% Done

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I cleared 40,000 words on my latest WIP.

celebrate

And yes, this is approximately 66% for me. As a romance writer, I like my works to come in around 70-80k words. I write a very bare bone first draft, so I leave myself space to go back and add in more during revisions. Things like scents and sounds to help the reader feel closer to the action. More description…or description at all.

My beta reader has nailed me for the number of sensory deprivation rooms I have in my early drafts. I’m much better about finding it and correcting it myself now, but that still means more words.

So, why am I celebrating the 66% mark? Am I that desperate for recognition? Maybe a little, but that’s not the point.

Why is the 66% mark important to me? Because at this point, I’ve conquered the dreaded middle.

I’m a pantser when I write. Yes, I’ve tried outlines.

outlining

Outlines simply don’t work for me. I’ve given up trying for the moment, and I’ve given myself over to letting the characters show me what’s going to happen.

I know where the story starts. I know how it ends. What I don’t know is the middle. How are they going to get there? It’s this middle part that teaches me a lot about the characters, what deeper internal motivators they have, their hopes, fears, etc.

The beginning, that’s really their face to the world. Their mask. To get them to reveal more, I have to throw some things at them. See how they react.

By the end of the story, well, you know me. There is going to be a happily-ever-after (HEA). That’s a given.

Sometimes, getting the characters to come clean in the middle is really hard. Either they have a lot to hide, or I am trying to author-plot and not let things evolve on their own. Me not stepping back and giving the characters agency is usually the issue, but sometimes the obstacles I throw at them are not significant to get them to come clean on their real internal struggles.

Does this mean a lot of revision later? You betcha.

firstdraft

Now that you know the characters better, you have to push all you’ve learned back to the beginning of the story. Let who they are peek around the corners of who they want you to believe they are. It requires changes to the beginning, and as I rewrite and delve deeper, it frequently requires a change in the ending as well. And lots more tinkering throughout.

But that’s revision. That’s later. Right now, it’s all about getting the electrons on the screen in a pattern that resembles words. Most of which will change later.

But if I can get through the middle, I have a really good shot of finishing the book. The end usually writes faster than any other part as we barrel towards the climactic resolution and our happily-ever-after.

Of course, I will probably have to rewrite the ending. The one novel I’ve polished and am querying had four different endings before I was happy.

Still, here’s hoping I can get that last 20,000 words and have another first draft waiting to be revised.

3 Things I Have Learned

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I have not yet published anything, but I thought I would share a few things I have learned in my writing journey.

 

Outlines

I have read that professional authors use outlines, so I need to use outlines. I tried to use them in a variety of formats with no success. Might be my personality. I used the outline more like a list to check off. Yeah, it kept me on track, but it also felt forced. And so did the story it generated.

I have found a stream of consciousness “outline” works best for me. What’s that? A Word document I throw all my thoughts and ideas into. Snippets of conversations, things I want to have happen, and a vague direction of the story I can solidify as I write. This worked well enough I was able to write a 55,000 word story in about 2 months.

Part of why this works well for me is because my first drafts are so skeletal. I tend to underwrite and need to go back and flesh it out. Add deeper descriptions, let you see more into the character’s thoughts, expand transitions so they aren’t so abrupt. These notes remind me of those details.

Clearly, your mileage may vary. The “outline” each author needs, I believe, is as unique as their personality and writing style.

 

Time

Time

I don’t really need as much time to write as I say I do. I want more, yes, but I have managed an almost complete, including revisions, manuscript in just over a year. I have 2 failed attempts at other novels that I may rework into different stories. I like the story ideas, they just didn’t work for the male lead. And I have managed a full rough draft of a new manuscript. All since January of 2015.

Plus, I started this blog in January 2016.

Only having an hour or so to write a day forces me to focus. It also forces me to use time more efficiently (I am writing this during breakfast while I watch the kids play). It also means I write almost daily as I won’t have “make-up” time later.

 

A Writer Does Not Write Alone

This is something I am still working on. Storytelling started as a group affair. People sitting around a campfire at night and making stuff up. It made the stories richer, better.

I tend to be very self critical and not want anyone to see my work until it is polished. But I have seen that my stories are better when I talk about the characters, their motivations, and what’s happening with one or two trusted people as I write. They offer another perspective and help make the story deeper. This is especially nice in the early phase of writing as it tends to reduce rewriting.

 

Detour – Continued

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That fever my little one was running? Well, it never went away. I got that “mom” feeling late at night, and I sat up with her listening to her struggle to breathe. My husband thought it might just be congestion, but I was sure it was more than that.

I listened to that inner mom voice. A trip to urgent care and several x-rays later, and the doctors determined she has pneumonia. Pneumonia in an adult is bad. Pneumonia in a baby is really bad.

So between medicine, breathing treatments, and soothing and comforting her, my muse has gone silent. Not unexpected, really. I have never been as stressed as I was as I waited for the doctors to figure out what was wrong with my baby. Not even when I broke both of my own legs.

This will put my outlining skills to the test. And my characterization. And a whole bunch of other writing skills. It also means I’m behind on my day job. I feel bad for my co-workers as this is a really busy time of the year for us, but evening logging in from home, there is almost nothing I can accomplish while tending a baby this sick.

We’ll figure things out. It looks like she’s going to be fine, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters most.

Detour

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I have been super excited about my new project. Characters are alive, the story is taking shape, my outline is already 9 pages long as I include snippets of dialogue and other key points as they pop into my head.

Sure, a bunch of it will get cut and reworked, but it’s been heady.  A taste of what made me love writing.

And then our baby got sick. She’s been running a fever of 101-103 (with Tylenol) for three days as I write this. At day 5, the doctor wants to see her (but not before, as he says little ones sometimes go through this, especially little ones in daycare). I had to take off of work. My husband had to take off of work. You’d think a day home would have seen some writing done, but a sick baby allows no time in front of a computer. She needs to be held, comforted and cuddled. She’s a baby. She’s sick. She hates being sick, and she’s mad as hell about it. And she lets you know. Constantly.

One of us has to be dedicated to her while the other deals with the rest of the things a household requires. Food. The other kid. Laundry. Dishes. Recycling. That’s just the few my sleep deprived brain can name that needed doing this morning.

It’s hard enough to deal with a sick little one, but it’s compounded by frustration. Sure, writing isn’t my day job, but its important to me, and I’d finally found this spark of energy.

I don’t want to lose this rhythm, this grove.

I’m hoping the time I have spent on the outline will see me through.

If not, I have to find something that will next time. This isn’t the first or last time that real life is going to get in the way.

New Project

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There is nothing like a new project. It’s exciting.

I started working on an outline for the story. Rather than the very structured, rigid outlines I used for term papers, I have gone more with a stream of conscious flow. Snippets of conversations, or conversations I want to be had. Background. Plot ideas. Protagonists and their motivations. Antagonists and their motivations.

The outline itself is a bit sprawling and I am trying to tame it as I go. But it’s working better, allowing me to select snippets and insert them into the story as I go rather than being bound.

At 9 pages and over 3,000 words, the outline is a beast unto itself.

But this has helped me produce almost 10,000 rough draft words. That is an amazing amount for me to accomplish in such a short time. Yeah, they’re all garbage and will need to be rewrtten and reworked, but that’s how all of my rough drafts are.

I just need to find a way to keep the momentum!

Yeah, that synopsis I was going to work on . . . not so much this week.

Outlines

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After reading several blog posts on the power of outlines and how important they are to good fiction, I decided to use one some months back on my current project.

I sat down and mapped out the story, using a traditional outline like I would have done with a term paper in college. All neat and organized with key points and characters laid out. I even did summaries for each of the characters so that I could come to grips with their personalities and motivations.

I’m starting to think I broke the outlining process. Or that I did it “wrong”. Wrong for me, anyway.

Maybe I am letting myself be too bound by its rigidity. Not letting the creativity and freedom flow and take me where they will.

  • I have these steps to take.
  • This path to walk
  • In this way

Maybe I am being too strict with outlining. Maybe it was only meant as a framework to get me thinking about the end before I get there. Maybe my analytical efficiency is driving me down a path I predetermined to see the “job” done. A path I am not sure is the best path, or even the road these characters need to travel. After all, how much creativity can you cram into a weekend? How much more do you learn about your characters as you spend hours writing them?

I am not saying writing is all unicorns and rainbows. Some mystic process where creative things just happen. For me, it’s 5% inspiration and 95% butt to chair. And problem solving. Now that X has happened, how do we get to Y in a way that doesn’t feel cheesy, forced or stupid. (I hate characters that do dumb things, especially when they should know better).

Or maybe what works for one writer, especially a full time, experienced author, is not what works for another.

I am not giving up on outlines, not yet, but I am thinking about putting this one in a drawer and seeing where the story goes on its own.