Well, the first draft of my first book is done. Good golly there's a lot to be done.
You know no one really feels comfortable with a semi-colon right? And the most running that happens in my day-to-day life is run-on sentences! (I crack myself up...) But that, dear readers, will be a post for another day once I've confidently climbed that mountain.
For now, let's take things back to the beginning. In my last post I discussed the very beginning of the particular series I'm writing now. They were inspired by a dream and I've learned about some unique hurdles that you have to take on to turn a simple dream into the epic story it deserves.
For this post, I wanted to delve into the beginning stages you'll want to consider no matter where your idea came from.
Advance Research...... I'll talk a little bit more about it in in a minute, but generally speaking, there's not a one-size-fits-all approach to this, and it makes sense that there wouldn't be.
How much research do you really need to do for a romance novel? Probably not a lot. But if you're basing your story on a real city, or culture that you're not a part of, you're going to want to look into details first. What about talking about a culinary foodie love interest and you don't know the difference between parsley and cilantro?
Other genres are more research heavy such as non-fiction (obviously) and science-fiction. My book is science-fiction and it's astounding how many hours I dedicated to research to make everything in my world believable and as accurate as it could be. What about murder mystery? Do you need to know how hard it is to kill someone off a certain way?
I'm just saying...I'm probably on a watch list somewhere for the things I've googled. I love learning so I consider myself better for it. I now know how long it takes for a body to decay, what causes nuclear reactors to melt down, how many planes are in the sky at any given time (barring 2020 pandemic....), what the population diversity is of every state in the USA, the states with the highest crime rates in the US, how long it takes various items like plastic or paper to deteriorate in different conditions, how long the average person and horse with rider can travel in a day, and all major natural disaster threats in the USA. And those topics are only a small percentage of what I've researched. I even emailed a question to my accountant....
Aside from the perk of knowledge-a beautiful gift no one can take from you, you can smoothly paint the background for your setting and avoid any embarrassing hiccups. I'd hate to have the premise of a book be about a nuclear reactor that was left without power and took 300 years to cool down and your story is 300 years in the future and it's warm but not dangerous and your protagonist likes to hot tub it in a power plant and then you find out that it takes the radiation 10,000 years to cool down!!! Or how embarrassing is it if your character rides horseback halfway across the USA in a week when really that horse is only going to travel 50 miles a day? Early research avoids massive re-writes down the road.
Let's talk planning. In general, there are 2 types of authors. "Planners" and "Pantsers". Planners like to organize their story line and chapters. Pantsers are more "fly by the seat of your pants" folks who like to just put pen to paper (or digits to keyboard) and see where it takes them. In general I'd say I lean more toward planning. I don't have a 300 bullet point paper outlining every twist and turn, but I have some general directions so I know which way we're going. And then I just start typing and see how I get from point A to point B.
Any time I've realized (whether at the end of writing the first draft or in the middle of the 7th chapter) that I'm missing a big chunk, I'll go back and add a chapter or two. I've found this helpful when I realized a transition was too quick or convenient. While I prefer to do this as I go to avoid backtracking edit overwhelm, it can also be helpful in the final stretch to just get something on the pages. Finishing that first draft, with the understanding that there will be lots of changes, is very rewarding and helps you overcome plot burn out.
Needing to take breaks from editing on my first book, I sat down last night to plan ahead for the 2nd book in the series. In one column, I have bullet points that will eventually be turned into chapters, or groups of chapters.
-Event, introduce Character A
-Character B's discovery, introduction to surroundings
-Event, important news
-important plot points 1 & 2
In the next column I have a list of characters. This may be different based on if it's a stand-alone or first book in a series, or if it's a sequel of some type. I outlined characters that we already know from book #1 and wrote a sentence or two on the most important parts to how their story will arc in this 2nd book.
In a third column, I noted things I need to keep consistent with the first book. Timelines that have to be honored or things will need to be considered that I may have hidden in the first book to lead us somewhere here.
I also have a list of questions that need to be answered. "Why would they agree to that" "Why is that character in such a rush?" I have to be able to answer the questions that my readers will be asking to keep us on the same page and pace.
I hope that these pointers gave a little perspective and help. I'm just learning as I go. My motto is Learn. Create. Share. Repeat. I'm learning and creating, and happy to share my process. Feel free to ask any questions! I've got several more topics to cover including some extensions here like "how to write a book based on questions", "how to create your world", and also my personal style of keeping track of notes and ideas. It's a bit helter-skelter, but it does the job for me :) Thanks for taking the time to read, have a fantastic day!
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