My outlining will probably go through three stages.

(1) Short Outline –  basic story arc of the book

(2) Long Outline – list of scenes, with conflict-response for each scene

(3) Outline Draft – technically, a first draft, but so awful I can’t stand to call it a draft, so I pretend it’s just a really long outline

* * *

I think of the Short Outline as the infrastructure of my book. Here I decide the word count I’m aiming at, the number of chapters and the approximate number of words per chapter. I decide how many PoV characters there will be, and how many storylines. Although it will give me tremendous grief at some point in the writing of the novel, I stick to this infrastructure like a underground splinter cult fanatic clings to an uzi.

My word count, however, often suffers from bloat, perhaps brought on by adverb retention, but often as a result of overindulging in subplots.

For this novel, I have a central image/metaphor of a well. I envision the still circle of water reflecting the sky. I have four PoV characters. I’m aiming at 80,000 words, on the theory that if I go over, I’ll still be under 100,000 words. Since all the PoV characters have equal weight, this allows 20,000 words for each character. I will split the characters’ sections in two. So the structure will look like this:

Wife

Friend

Husband

Son

Son

Husband

Friend

Wife

…like sky reflecting on water.

I know. I spend way too much time entertaining myself with this stuff. Does this contribute to a better novel? I have no idea. It’s like bloomers on a baby doll. These are parts which might not show, but making them is half the fun of dressing the doll.

I’ve already encountered the first problem this set up has caused me. I need to make sure the timeline fits the order of the PoV sections in my outline. At first I thought it would be easy, but that was because I had the wrong date for an (actual) historical event which appears in my novel. 

Opps.

I may have to shuffle my characters’ sections around a bit.

* * *

The picture shows a craftsman cutting down the outline of a carving.

Research — and its counterpart, worldbuilding — used to be my greatest joy in writing. Recently, I often feel so pressured to add beans to the wordcount, I don’t feel I can afford to luxuriate in research as I used to.

The project I’m working on now is research-intensive. I thought I’d done most of the research already, working on a non-fiction piece.

However, as I’ve  started working on a detailed outline, I’ve realized the needs of non-fiction and fiction diverge greatly. For non-fiction, I mostly needed to know when, where and who. With those facts, I can speculate on why. For fiction I need to answer much more about how. How did it smell? How did it look? How did it taste? Only then can I speculate on how it felt.

My outline/draft so far is peppered with notes to myself: [NEED: description of a fishing ship] All of these notes are promises to myself to do research. 

Characters require research too. Names must fit the culture and period. Every character, even minor ones, needs a rough biography, and the major characters need a study with all their likes, dislikes, habits, childhood friends, mannerisms and so on. These character quirks cannot be simply drawn from my own circle of friends or my own imagination. Neither my personal experience nor my imagination is adequate to the task. I need to read real biographies, and draw inspiration from those. More research.

My husband points out I could research forever and never be satisfied. He may be right. But I’ve also found research to be the best antedote to writer’s block. Sometimes, after deep reading of some fascinating culture, historical event or real person, I find myself so inspired I have to write down my own response, transformed into fiction.

How much research do you do in order to write your stories?