Episode 2 of Many Hands Make Write Work - Plotting and Outlining

Welcome back!

If you haven't read the intro from last month, you can check it out right here before you read any further.

So, does it all begin at Chapter One, Page One?

Hardly!

That's a part of it, but for me, that doesn't come until a bit down the line. 

Where it actually starts is at 'inception'. 

Inception is when I start getting weird and crazy thoughts in my head that swirl around in there, sometimes for months, as I try to think up the next big suspense or thriller plot that hasn't already been done or overdone. Sometimes I'll bat stories around for months before I even write a single word.

With my very first book, a romantic-suspense called "Broken Pieces", I had written on that story off and on for about ten years. The reason it took long for me to publish it was fear. Fear that it wasn't good enough or people would laugh or worse, they wouldn't want to read it at all.

I pride myself on being able to come up with these wild and nutty ideas to create an environment that will enthrall and sustain readers(I hope, which is why reviews are extremely important) so that they will want to read more and more of my stories. Writing a book often involves a fair amount of research.

For instance, when I decided to create Oliver Perritt and write his disability into the story, I actually went to a rehabilitation center out on Long Island to physically see and touch various hand prosthesis so I could understand how they work.  

This, by far, was the coolest 'field trip' I have ever taken for the sake of a project and the technicians and CEO of the center couldn't have been more awesome. Because of them generously allowing me access to a behind-the-scenes look on how these 'robotic hands' are created, it gave me a much better understanding which allowed me to make Oliver as life-like as possible when I wrote him.

So, the first thing I usually do after getting a general idea for a story is to try and work out the beginning, middle, and end.

Sounds simple, right? Yeah, it's not....at least not always. 

Let me explain.

Some authors write and make up the story as they go along while others are tackle this differently by 'mapping' things out to guide how they are going to actively write the entire thing.  

This is supposed to make life easier, but what happens when you suddenly come up with a better idea for things to work out in a scene better than what you planned? 

That happens to me sometimes, and if I can pull off a scene in this way to make it more effective (i.e. enjoyable to the reader), then I will go for it.

To keep things straight, I get out the old poster board and my trusty container of pushpins.  I hang the posterboard up on my office wall and I take the next step.

Super simple - index cards!

I take a 3x5 index card, cut it down the middle and begin mapping out Chapter 1, scene 1.  When I'm done "mapping" that first scene I tack it to the upper left-hand corner of my poster board and move on to the next scene/index card half.

After a time, which is was happened to me while I wrote "The Doctor" I had a poster board full of index card halves and even a post-it or two in there for good measure to remind me of a character trait, or a character's habit.  

You'd be surprised how many times an author will actually forget a minor character's name, forget that they are red-headed and not blonde, and so on.  This usually happens because I am already thinking about the next thing I plan to write and my head is just FULL. Sometimes I can't even sleep at night for seeing a story play out, beginning to end, inside my head. It won't leave me alone until I write it down.  

My current project, Dissemble, was plotted out about a year or so before I even wrote The Doctor. The story just wouldn't leave me in peace until I wrote a rough plot outline.

So, back to our board!

There's so much information to remember, it just happens. So I learned after a while to write it down. In fact, I create a character sheet for each character. I'll even go as far as to look at stock photos of models that remind me of a character so I have a vivid image in mind, thus making the character much easier to write

After I have all of my cards in order, only then do I start to physically type out the story. 

Raw. 

It will not be perfect(yet)and situations may or may not change.  For instance, the original ending to "The Doctor" was a happy one, until I had one shot of espresso too many and added on a nightmare ending instead that wasn't part of the original plan. In fact, that little maneuver caused readers to email me, begging to know if Oliver Perritt would return in another story! 

I am actually working on an extended epilogue of "The Doctor", moved by what an impact Oliver had on readers. For those of you who have already read the book, you know by now that Oliver is quite a character ;-) 

Who knows, maybe he will return. 

Maybe not. 

We'll see!

So that's about it for the planning stage of things. Be sure to check in next month when I reveal the fun part of creating a catchy description for my book!

See ya then!

Erica :-)