Early Stages of Story Development

We’re currently hard at work on our new novel, have been for several weeks, although technically we haven’t written the first word. We haven’t even started to create the outline. All that exists in tangible form so far is a few pages of notes.

What have we been doing all this time?

Talking, mostly. The cast is pretty well defined at this point, and we’ve become comfortable enough with the premise to have a shorthand of sorts for referring to it. We’ll choose a character or a plot element to brainstorm about, and set out to walk a lap around the neighborhood. When we get home, there are usually several new additions or amendments to be made to those notes. Some of the new ideas are incompatible with what we already had, but we hang onto it all because we’re not sure yet which version will turn out to be truth.

Yesterday, Kent took a stab at capturing a single, cohesive rendition of the plot we have so far, skipping over all the false starts and mirages. It’s not yet ready to be used as a real outline, but it has already served a useful purpose. Jen went through it and had only a few minor notes, which gave us both confirmation that we really do have the same mental image of the story.

The verbal interaction is fluid and dynamic. In fact, this is probably the stage of the process where a collaboration is most alive, because the process itself consists entirely of talking to the other person. But getting it down on paper creates something concrete that you can analyze with greater precision.

We have about half a plot, so far. The beginning is nailed down pretty well, but not all of the alternatives have been pruned all the way through the middle. As for the ending, well we’re in basic agreement about which characters need a comeuppance and who should get a happy(ish) outcome, and several images have been proposed that could be part of the climax. So, about half a plot. With any luck, it’ll go faster from here on out.