Hello!
We’re now one week into the process of writing a new book, and it got off to a rocky start as I had a difficult time seeing anything. My plan had been to start the outlining process on August 1st. I had gone kayaking the day before, and for the first time ever, tipped out of my boat. I was fine, I was even laughing about taking a splash, until I realized my glasses had come off and were now lost somewhere at the bottom of the river. My keys had been on me as well, and the fob must’ve short circuited because anytime I was near my car, the alarm would just keep going off. I still had a spare set of keys, so the soaked set ended up getting 86’d in the woods.
Fun fact: optometrists close early on Saturdays, and aren’t in on Sundays. So, I had to wait until Monday to schedule an appointment. Thankfully, I was able to get an eye exam, new prescription, and new glasses that afternoon. I’m going to hold out to the hope that this is the roughest patch I’ll be facing while writing this book…until that inevitably does not become the case.
Despite becoming Mr. Magoo for a couple of days, I was able to start outlining ideas for the new book, expanding on notes I’d been jotting down before the first of the month. The first thing I did this week was review and elaborate on the backstories of the main characters, to get a firmer grasp on why they are where they are at the start of the book, but more importantly, who they are. To me, this is a crucial first step because when I write, I ask “Why is the character doing this?” nearly every chapter. By understanding their backstories, I understand what’s shaped their lives to this point, and what might be in the back of their mind with any decisions they have to make throughout the story.
This mentality stems from when I’m reading or watching something where a character does something either out of character or that doesn’t appear to make any sense. Maybe in a detective story, the mean captain that the protagonist has butted heads with throughout the book gives them a vote of confidence to run with their lead, however implausible, even though the protagonist hasn’t provided a compelling enough reason to gain their trust. Or in most horror movies, a character all alone in a house will decide to to investigate a noise coming from the basement. You’ve probably noticed several other examples yourselves in stories. I try to avoid doing this. To me, it drags down the quality of the narrative. I write my stories from the character’s perspective so that when they make decisions, even if you disagree with them, you understand why they made them.
I already had a sense of where most of the main characters fit into the story, who they were, and why they would act the way they did. But one of the antagonists felt like a watered down version of the main villain before I took this step. Now, after doing this in depth look at their history, I’ve got a backstory that’s unique to this character with a tragic motivation that differentiates them from the main baddie. The two now won’t feel like clones of each other, and each time the main character interacts with one of them, it will feel separate and distinct from his interactions with the other .
For most of the week, I started going into a more detailed rundown of the plot. I’ve had a bit of an idea on the course of events, and I knew what point A and point Z would look like, but the roadmap to get there had a lot of routes that were missing/under construction. This more detailed outline ended up focusing on the environment the characters would find themselves in after the previous chapters had played out. This, along with a stronger understanding of who the characters are and how they would most likely behave, really helped lay the groundwork for me to get from page one to the final scene (which still feels like it’s going to need a lot of work).
I’m really pleased with how the outline is going so far, and I’m optimistic that I’m going to have reliable vision for the entire upcoming week.