Outling Hard, Boo Hoo

Break out your violins, cause I’m gonna wail and whine.

I was supposed spend this month finishing my Mother of All Outlines. Instead, I did the usual shoddy-bum half-baked outline I usually do and then immediately snuck off to start writing on Book II.

Now, I had an excuse. (Naturally.) Each book has a number of story threads, which follow different PoV characters and eventually meet up somewhere in the book. One of these threads, for every book, is not like the others. It’s usually a series of events from the past. In Book I, a thread follows the mysterious Corn Maiden. In Book II, there’s a thread follows Mayara, an Aelfae orphan whose whole family is murdered by humans, and who is then taken in by humans who don’t realize she’s fae.

Since these threads are in the past, they are out of chronological sync with the rest of the series. When I write them, however, it’s easier to do it in chronological order — so I like to write the whole sequence quickly.

I did write a shallow outline, which still manages to be more detailed than my previous outlines.

(Granted, sometimes my outline consisted of a proper name of the hut.) Huh? I just read this last line I wrote and it made no sense. Damn, I am falling asleep.