I don't know if there's any call for this, but I decided to lay out some of my thoughts on my process as it's been desperately in need of change for the past oh ... I'd say three years or so. If this isn't your thing, skip it. I'm just ruminating, but thought it might be the sort of thing those of you who are investing in me would be interested in hearing about.
I've spent a lot of the last week or so (when I wasn't editing Carina for release or Resurrection audio) working on an outline.I've always struggled with outlining. As many of you may have recognized, my release schedule sucks the dick (so to speak). While I have completed two books within the last span, only one of which was for typical release, the pace at which I've been working has been dictated by a few disparate elements, all of which have combined to slow me down.The first, and largest, has been declining health. That problem was all last year and the first few months of this year, but I've since changed things, dropped 45 pounds and counting, and turned that mostly around. Endocrinologically, I'm in a much better place than I have been, but while I still have more to do to reach my target weight and fitness, that's not what this post is about.
This post is about outlining.
I have, traditionally, been something of a hybrid between pantser and plotter. For those of you who don't know, there are two essential camps when it comes to the construction of a story. The first is the 'pantser.' As in, to do something by the seat of one's pants. This involves essentially making it up as one goes along. This is a completely valid method, though it does have pitfalls for the unwary, and I should know as I've fallen into every single one of them over my years as a published author. I remember scrapping thirty-five THOUSAND words of MKS book one alone, for instance, and I've rewritten the ending of more than one of my books based on feedback.The second camp is that of the plotter. Plotters create an outline of their story before they begin writing, and move smoothly (in theory) through the process of writing because they know what the hell happens next. Most of the publishers I know insist on completed outlines before they accept a book project from their authors, because THEY know how important outlines are to keeping a project on schedule.
I've read several books on outlining, and have tried it several times in the past, with limited success. The method I started with, and which got me through most of my books, was to come up with some characters, figure out where they start, where I wanted them to wind up, and a good set-piece climax. Then I just muddled them through to the climax, then the denouement, story done.
As I said, it DOES work, but lately it hasn't been working nearly as well.
Thus, again, I've decided to give outlining a go, this time much more seriously. I plan to launch Resurrection on Royal Road. This will be an entirely new marketing strategy for me, and as such I've spoken with several people who already use that platform to great effect. They've covered for me the most important elements of being successful there, and the number one of those is ... you guessed it, consistency.
Once it's on Royal Road, it's public. Outside changes for the sake of editing, people expect the books that derive from RR content to be largely the same. The way I've been doing things, I often layer foreshadowing in later as ideas come to me. That won't work in this new venue, because I can't go back and alter stuff that's already posted or - at the very least - I'll piss off people who've been following.
I need a plan. I need that plan to extend far enough into the future that I can layer in the foreshadowing without having to worry about whether it was hinted at later. I have to make sure the character drives are consistent, so I need to know not just over the course of one book but over the entire series of books where those characters are going, and where they're going to wind up.
Planning of this sort is akin to building a skyscraper. Unless you want the building to collapse, you need to know where every single rivet and beam goes before the foundation is laid.
My writing style may not be popular on RR. The readers there may not like what I have to offer. But the one thing I DON'T want is for them to decide I don't know what I'm doing, or that I'm too lazy to know where my story is going before it gets there. I don't want to write myself into a corner, because I won't be able to just back the truck up and dump thousands of words of content once it's been published.
So, we come back to outlining. I'm going to finish an outline for book 2 of the litRPG I debuted here (Now titled Resurrection) and I'll be sketching in the rough of what happens in future books all the way out to an end point. Before I publish a single word on RR, I want to know where the whole series ENDS.
This is a privilege granted only to those of us who don't work for publishers. A publisher will want to keep a book series going as long as it can possibly be profitable, and we all know what happens to those kinds of series. They run too long, and never wind up with a satisfying conclusion because half the time the publisher cancels it, the other half the author gives up on it.
I've had a few flops, and it pains me to look back on them and know that I'll never finish those stories. I really don't want that to happen again, and the only way to guarantee (to the best of my personal ability at any rate) that is to make sure I know where it's going to end before I introduce it to the public.
The actual PROCESS of writing an outline varies. I personally prefer the one described in Libbie Hawker's Take Off Your Pants, and that's been the basis for my specific process this time around.
I have no idea whether or not completing these outlines will up my game, but I have to hope it will, because if it doesn't I honestly have no idea what else to do to up my game. The days when I was willing to waste ten thousand words figuring out if a scene would work or not are over. I want to present stories worth the time invested, both for my readers, and myself.
There are amazing talents out there who have read so diligently in their chosen genres that they don't need to make their outlines explicit. The shadow of the story is right there in the millions of words they've read and written already. For me, that's somewhat true as well. This isn't my first rodeo, after all.
That said, I'm always trying to better myself and enhance the quality of my craft. I think mastering and making full use of the outline is my next step.
Wish me luck.
-Ceb