Tagged: outline

The Saga of Gigi and Pierre

It’s amazing that, no matter how conscientious you try to be about looking around all the corners during the outlining phase, stuff always finds places to lurk so it can ambush you during prose.

Naturally, we’ve known all along that Gigi and Pierre will become a couple, and that their bond will be tested. We talked about how things look from each of their perspectives, what’s different about Pierre’s attitude toward the relationship, etc. And we identified the moment when the first test will crop up. What we didn’t do was spec in a scene to show the fallout of that event. Then the prose draft had caught up to that point in the narrative, and this felt like an omission.

We had to discuss what to do about it. The default stance here in the Writing Cave is that we don’t like scenes that exist solely for depicting Relationship Drama. Words like “soapy” get tossed around sometimes. Scenes need to earn their keep, and we love it when they accomplish more than one job. So, we tried to talk ourselves into sticking with the blueprint, i.e., not adding a unitasker relationship scene and thus keeping the Gigi/Pierre breakup implicit.

Thing is, our original concern was that not making the couple fight explicit leaves a gap in the story. And that’s because the real rule about scenes earning their keep is that you include the ones that carry the story. Ask, “what’s this story about?” and, “what is this scene about?” When they line up, you have a winner. (NB, stay alert for too much of a good thing; if you showed it already, you probably don’t have to show it again.)

The story can be “about” multiple things. In our case, it’s about ghosts and it’s also about this Gigi/Pierre thing. Their romance and its ups and downs shape the choices they will be making later on. So, while we don’t want to give anybody soap poisoning, we need to give readers a decoder ring for why those two behave the way they do. So, this instance of Relationship Drama merits a scene, even if that’s the only job it does.

A good writing partner is someone you work well with, so that the soap operatics are confined to the page.

Outline Like The Pros

Kent has run out of stubs to work from for Untitled Ghost Novel Number One. Jen is closing in on the next batch, but until they’re available Kent had to find something else to do with his writing time. So he’s writing the prose outline for Untitled Ghost Novel Number Two.

A prose outline is like a very detailed synopsis. But while a synopsis skips over subplots and secondary characters, the prose outline is comprehensive. The goal is to capture everything from our brainstorming notes and the plot rainbow, putting it all in order with a rudimentary narrative flow.  Ours typically come in at around twenty pages.

We’ve never met anyone who likes to write synopses. They hurt. If it’s a one-pager that’s intended for use in marketing, it’ll usually be written after the manuscript is completed, and it’s painful to squash everything down so much. But the prose outline comes beforehand, and it’s painful because you have to describe a story that you haven’t really written yet. It’s sort of like a first draft. Of course, we say that about the rainbow sometimes too. And each stub is a first draft of a particular scene. Maybe a term like prototype, or proof-of-concept, would be more apt for these pre-writing artifacts.

A writing partner is someone who writes the prose outline, when he’s done procrastinating by writing about writing the prose outline.

Routine Sets You Free

People become writers for all kinds of reasons, but one thing no one ever says is that they just really love sitting and staring at a blank page. Writers want the freedom to create, to express, to put their ideas into other people’s heads. We don’t daydream about pecking on our keyboards; we daydream about readers saying our stories changed their lives.

Writing takes a lot of work. No matter what kind of process you use, whether it’s formal or informal or utter chaos, it’s a lot of work. Here in the Writing Cave, we do have an opinion about this matter. Our process is pretty formal. Not top-hat and cumerbund formal, but it wears a tie. Lots of people would say that the time and energy we spend on pre-writing might as well be spent on actual writing.

Maybe. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, so do what you find works for you. But a simple trade-off of one task for another isn’t the only perspective to consider.

The thing we like about having a good process is the predictability it brings to the sitting-at-the-keyboard part of the job. We don’t need to devote energy to figuring out if we’re working on the right thing at any given moment, so all our energy can go into figuring out innovative new ways to torment our characters. The creative freedom lies in being free from the burden of infinite pathways.

The expression “having your work cut out for you” is generally meant as facing a big task. Well, if you’re writing a novel then you definitely are. What that phrase really means, though, is that the leather to make the shoes is cut to shape already — you might have lots of shoes to make, but the materials are set up and waiting. That’s what a strong process gives you.

A writing partner is someone who’ll make sure you have your work cut out for you.

Toodles, 2019!

At the dawn of 2019, we predicted that we would write Sibling of Music Novel this year, and we did! Almost all of it! We also predicted that we would probably move on to work on another project after we finished, and that is where our prophetic faculties let us down. Even though we didn’t complete a novel this year, we’re very happy with where things stand. It was a busy year.

In January we were betwixt and between. Kent was putting the finishing touches on Grandson of Science Novel while Jen tackled the outline for Sibling of Music Novel. We didn’t start composing the new novel until almost the end of February.

Our time in March was divided between writing the Music book and discussing our next project, the Ghost Series.

We were steaming right along in April, writing song lyrics for inclusion in the novel, and researching many diverse topics to round out our characters.

The merry month of May on the blog was dedicated to a deep-dive recap of events in our chain story. In the background we were still writing the novel (when we weren’t visiting the Arctic Circle or The Village), and things ran smoothly until June. That’s when we started encountering bottlenecks. And of course the mandatory fretting about word count reared its head.

In July we talked in depth about Stubs, and shared our template. In August we drank Red Bull. For research. The effects have mostly worn off by now.

We crossed the 100,000 word line with Sibling in September, with no end in sight. So of course we fretted a little harder about what the final word count will be. Then we spent a little bit of early October in NYC for some hands-on research and to meet our agent, and we batted around the idea of setting a deadline.

In November we got a good idea of how much work is left, and admitted that we were unlikely to be done by the end of the year.

Now it’s December again. When our house isn’t full of guests we’re making great progress. Despite that, Sibling of Music Novel will not be done by the 31st. It was more important to us to spend time with our kids than to lock ourselves away in the writing cave and stress about a deadline. We don’t want to be totally laissez-faire about things, though, so we’ve set January 31 as our completion date.

Next week we’ll talk about our plans for the new year. And the new decade.

Happy New Year!

The Skelley Fiction Roadmap

We mention stubs a lot, but it’s important to understand that we don’t just pull them out of thin air. The process has steps that go in a certain order, becoming more detailed as they progress.

Our first major step is a rainbow, which is how we collate the random notes from one or more steno pads we fill up during our brainstorming sessions. (So, those steno notes are prolly our real first step. But you know how to write in a notepad, we think.)

The rainbow is a color-coded representation of the major story beats. Each square of paper is approximately equal to a scene.

(Details about how we build and use the rainbow can be found here.)

The rainbow gets turned into an outline, which doesn’t follow the strict formatting you learned in school. If we were to write a hitman novel, it would look something like this:

And that gets turned into a stub. We fill in the template and write a scene synopsis like so:

The meat of the stub is the scene synopsis: a page or so of text that lists all the major events and how they make characters feel. (Our real stubs are generally longer than the above example.) The stub is not the scene; it’s the instructions for building it. The stub is allowed to tell instead of showing, in fact it’s encouraged. Don’t get fancy here.

When the actual scene gets written based on this, phrases like “Thomas is confused” would be replaced along the lines of, “He stared at Mary, whatever she was saying drowned out by a litany of objections to her very presence. She didn’t have a key, for one thing. He’d never told her his address, for another. And she fucking well knew she’d be waking him up.” (Snuck a little “… and cranky” in there too.)

We find the word count goes up by a factor of at least four, sometimes more like ten, when progressing from stub to scene. Any salient info that isn’t actually in the scene should still be noted in the stub. This is what we usually use the “Remember” line for in the template. If Mary hasn’t eaten in two days, mention that. Even if she’s not the POV character.

What to leave out of the stub: description, mainly. Mention only the specific details that are key to the scene’s meaning and mission.

Just Hold Still, Dammit!

Jen and Kent are hardcore plotters, expending a ton of energy at the beginning of a project to get every last wrinkle ironed out. It is the Skelley way. It makes it a lot easier to divvy up the writing later if both halves of the partnership have a rock solid understanding of how all the pieces fit together.

But back to that “expending a ton of energy” part. Jen is currently in the midst of creating the actual outline. You know, the kind with roman numerals and all that jazz. It’s something she usually enjoys (don’t judge), but this time it’s frustrating her. Events in the timeline keep oozing around and refusing to hold still, and Jen really feels like they ought to know their place by now.

Our process is long and arduous, but not particularly complicated. Usually anyway.

  • Step one is a lengthy series of conversations where we talk through the whole story and take copious notes.
  • Step two is combing through those notes to put everything in order and discard the bits that are obsolete.
  • Step three is to polish the results of step two into a prose outline. For this novel (Sibling of Music Novel) that came to 24 pages (12,000 words), plus an additional couple of pages of notes on the setting.
  • Step four is not always necessary, but we dusted it off for this novel: an actual calendar to track events. Jen went through the prose outline and distributed the events on the calendar to make sure everything lined up properly. Everything seemed to be swell until she started:
  • Step five, which is the current step — the Real Outline. This is the step where the actual structure of the novel starts to come into focus. We look at how the events will break down into actual scenes. There are plenty of facts that we know about the story and our characters that are important, but that don’t justify their own scene. So as Jen works her way along, she’s looking for dynamic and interesting ways to convey some fairly mundane (for now) facts so that they won’t come out of nowhere later when they matter, and feel unearned.
  • Step six will be using the outline/glorified scene list to create the mini scene synopses that we call stubs.
  • Step seven will be the actual composition.

Each step along the way clarifies our story’s structure, uncovers plot holes and magical thinking, and helps us get to know the characters. By looking at things from so many angles, at so many differing magnifications, we find the weak spots before we start to write. It’s a lot of labor up front, but it saves a ton of work in rewrites.

The problem Jen’s encountering is that the events she so painstakingly placed on the calendar in step four are getting shuffled around in step five. It’s nothing so earthshaking that we need to rethink the plot, it’s just that now the calendar will need to be updated to reflect the actual actual flow of events, and that makes Jen sigh.

Having a writing partner means having someone to soothe your fevered brow while you shake your fist at the universe you created.

2018 – The Year That Was

To the shock of both of us, last year’s forecast for 2018 was spot-on. We wanted to finish up the Science Novels, outline the middle Music Novel, and begin talking about the Ghost Novels, and that’s pretty much what we did. The one place we missed the mark was in predicting (or hoping) that the first Science Novel would be released in 2018. It wasn’t. But we have the best excuse! 2018 was the year we got an agent! And that put our self-publishing plans on hold while we talk to him and figure out what makes sense in this new landscape.

Here’s how we spent 2018 on the blog:

January and February were devoted to writing Grandson of Science Novel, whining about missing self-imposed deadlines and target word counts, a brief break to clean our desks, and an update to our chain story’s cast of characters.

In March we mused about whether a protagonist should learn of ALL of the villains evil doings (“No.”) And we had the joy of setting up new computers.

April brought several rounds of critique group advice, and we finally reached the end of the first draft of Grandson of Science Novel. Break out the champagne!

But don’t drink too much, because we still had some work to do before the Science Novels could all be considered Done Enough. We spent May plugging holes and strengthening descriptions. Oh, and we got a puppy.

On June 1 we declared ourselves done for realsies, and hit the ground running on that Music Novel outline.

July and August were devoted to brainstorming, outlining, and research for Sibling of Music Novel.

In September we pulled back from Music Novels and dove straight into the Science Novels again, reading through all three of them in preparation for edits and cover design.

The Science Novels remained our focus in October as we worked to get them ready for our beta readers. Plus we passed a major milestone: 1000 blog posts!

When the Science and Music Novels are done, our next project is going to involve ghosts. We spent November taking various road trips and using the time on the road to lay the groundwork for this whole new story universe. Plus we tossed some old audio equipment outside during a blizzard and took pictures of it. As you do.

Which brings us up to the present. December. We GOT AN AGENT! And since he’s going to be selling the first Music Novel for us, we really need to turn our attention back to that series and get the middle book done. We were a bit rusty when we sat down to our brainstorming, but with a little bit of WD-40 and a couple of jumper cables we’re now purring along like a vintage muscle car.

We hope your 2018 went well, and your 2019 goes even better. Happy New Year!

Sayonara (Not So) Sweet ’16

What a year. Politics were shit, and too many cool celebrities died.

But!

It wasn’t total misery! Looking back at our post from this time last year, it seems we more or less accomplished what we set out to do in the writing cave. Son (and Grandson!) of Science Novel are both outlined, and we’re well underway with the composition. Go Team Skelley!

Where we deviated from our plan was basically everything that had to do with Son of Music Novel. It did not get time to rest quietly in a drawer, it did not get a thorough edit. Since the other members of our writers’ group were not at a point where they had anything to share, Son of Music Novel got its critique debut a bit early. It’s been a challenge to divide our attention between the projects, but we’re managing. At least we have each other’s shoulders to cry on.

So how did we spend our year 2016 at SkelleyCo Amalgamated Fictions, LLC?

In January and February we were deep in the outlining for Son of Science Novel. It’s pretty much the only thing we blogged about.

March brought our brilliant scheme to outline both sequels before moving on to prose. We did accomplish that, and as far as we can tell at this altitude, we haven’t fucked it up yet. If we can ever get out of this holiday quagmire and chain ourselves to our desks again, we ought to be able to finish up Son and roll right on into Grandson.

Along with taxes, April brought an end to the outlining, and a trip down memory lane. We cleaned out the Writing Cave and took a look at how we used to do things back in the Olden Days. Then we partook of a different kind of nostalgia, beginning an editing pass on Music Novel, which hadn’t seen the light of day in a while.

May was spent elbow-deep in the guts of Music Novel, editing like fiends. Or skilled surgeons, if you’d rather.

In June we hit a couple of bumps in the road, but our partnership (and marriage!) are as strong as ever.

Come July we were all over the place, working in all three of our story worlds at once, and beginning the preliminary work for self-publishing our very first novel, Miss Brandymoon’s Device.

Happy Anniversary! In August, our chain story reached installment 100! And we were still getting through all the throat-clearing that happens before we actually start writing a novel (or two).

September was mostly spent in the run-up to publishing Miss Brandymoon’s Device. Kent created a beautiful cover for it and both of its siblings. We did all kinds of boring behind-the-scenes technical stuff with fonts and layouts and what-have-you. Jen took care of the final pre-writing tasks for the new novels.

And then Boom! October! Book birthday! We think our new baby is gorgeous, and we hope you love it just as much as we do. Hop on over to your favorite book retailer and pick up a copy of the ebook for free! Or order a physical copy from Amazon. You won’t regret it!

Suddenly it was November. How could it possibly be Thanksgiving already? Please explain to us the passage of time. As we always do, we ignored NaNoWriMo and kept our own schedule, with got us to 20,000 by the middle of the month. Not too shabby, when you consider how many distractions we were dealing with.

Good thing there are no distractions in December, amiright? Despite a very long list of things vying for our attention we’re going to finish up 2016 with about 45,000 words in the can for Son of Science Novel. It’s not as many as we’d hoped we might have by now, but it’s nothing to sneeze at.

Jen was feeling a little disheartened that we weren’t further along, and as we worked on this Year in Review post she was able to diagnose her main issue. It feels like we’ve been working on this book for an entire freakin’ year! And that’s because we have been. But we took a huge break in the middle to edit several novels and actually get one of them out in front of people. Somehow that part had slipped Jen’s mind. But when you look at things rationally and see that we’ve only been actually writing this book since sometime in October, it feels like an accomplishment to be proud of.

So we’ll say it again, Go Team Skelley!

Next week we’ll talk about our plans for 2017.

Time Flies Like An Arrow

r-avatarWoof.

Everything. Takes. Forever.

Maybe we have unrealistic expectations. Okay, that’s probably it. After all, we’ve done this several times, so of course it’ll just go faster and smoother each time from now on, right?

Jen continues to hammer away at the outlining for Son of Science Novel. It’s taking (spoiler alert!) longer than she budgeted. But it really is coming together, and now she’s nearly done incorporating all the mysterious scratches left by mysterious chickens in our various steno pads, from back when we were brainstorming the story. The process might be going faster, except she finds herself distracted by the art project happening on Kent’s side of the writing cave.

Kent continues to refine the illustration for the cover of our trilogy’s first book. It’s getting very close too, in fact, but there’s always one more tweak, one more font to try, one more configuration of the title and other text in relation to the artwork… Kent claims that he’d be making better time if not for the constant distraction of the outline being crafted on the other side of the writing cave. (Jen rolls her eyes.)

It’s worth giving your projects the time they need in order to create work that you’re proud of. With a partner sharing the load, you’ll get through the slow patches in half the time and have energy left for the fun stuff.

It’s Not Safe To Go Alone

r-avatarThe end is in sight!

Son of Music Novel is nearing completion. We only have to write 5.5 more scenes before we reach the finale. That means that we really need to figure out the ending now.

Gasp! You say you don’t have an ending? That’s not entirely accurate. Months ago when we were brainstorming and outlining this beast we had a vision of the ending. We knew in broad strokes what would happen, and that vision has not changed. But now it’s time to fill in the details.

We’ve talked in the past about the importance of having pretty much every detail planned before you start writing, which is especially important when you are writing with a partner. Endings are a little bit different for us, though. We like to leave a little wiggle room so that as we develop the characters throughout the novel we can tailor the ending to them.

Well, now it’s tailoring time. Kent was finishing up a scene and Jen had just filled in all the stubs leading up to the grand finale. Since Kent was occupied, Jen got out her measuring tape and her pin cushion and scissors and took a stab at brainstorming the ending. Alone. It did not go well. She was coming up with brilliant insights like “When the disaster strikes, the characters can be inside or outside.” She was not wrong.

By the time Kent finished his scene, Jen had found a different little project with which to occupy herself, so Kent took his own stab at storyboarding the ending. Alone. Like an animal. His contributions were something like “The disaster could be a fire. Or a flood. Or a tornado. Or a volcano. Or a giant squid attack.” All exciting scenarios to be sure, but he wasn’t really getting anywhere with his list.

So then we started talking to each other. We’ve said a million times that communication is the key to a successful writing collaboration, that two heads are better than one, and we’ve just proven ourselves right. Go Team Skelley!

As soon as we started talking, the ideas started flowing. In less than half an hour we’d devised something brilliant. And it still looks brilliant a few days later! At the end of August we set ourselves a goal of having the first draft done by the end of the year, and it looks like we’ll actually be done much sooner than that (if this didn’t just jinx us). Either of us on our own would be screwed, but together we can work miracles!