Writing News
This week I finished up my rough draft for that new Passport to Romance idea. It is 24,901 words long and I know from experience that I’m going to have a hard time keeping it under 35,000 words once I edit and add details and make it good.
I also did quite a bit of plotting for my NaNoWriMo mystery idea. I got down the six things that Larry Brooks advises that you have down before you start to write. The first plot point, the first pinch point, the midpoint, the second pinch point, the second plot point, and the climax. Then I wrote Blake Snyder’s 15 Beats you need in every novel. The Opening Image, Theme Stated, Set-Up, Catalyst, Debate, Break Into Two, Fun and Games, B Story, Midpoint, Bad Guys Close In, All Is Lost, Dark Night of the Soul, Break Into Three, Finale, and The Closing Image. Some of these things overlap. Then I broke The Finale into sections the way Jim Butcher recommends on his blog. He breaks the Finale down into these parts: Isolation, Confrontation, Dark Moment, Choice, Dramatic Reversal, and Resolution. Then I made a document that has thirty chapters in it. Under each chapter heading I wrote: Goal, Conflict, Disaster, Emotional Reaction, Review & Logic & Reason, Anticipation, Choice. Then I put the 6 bare bones items into this chart at the appropriate chapter. Then I put the 15 things under the appropriate chapter. Then I put the six parts of the finale into their appropriate chapter. And finally I tried to put something into each chapter. Maybe it is a choice, or a goal, or a reaction. But I tried to put some bit of an idea under each chapter heading. My chapter outline isn’t complete, but all thirty chapters have some spark of a story associated with them.
Now, I finally feel like I can start writing if I had to. I would rather take more time to research locations and plot details online, but I know that if I had to write I could. So, this has been a good week and I’m really looking forward to November when I get to jump into this new mystery and see what the story becomes.
