{"id":880,"date":"2009-03-27T22:14:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-27T22:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/2009\/03\/27\/short-outline-long-outline-draft\/"},"modified":"2009-03-27T22:14:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-27T22:14:00","slug":"short-outline-long-outline-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2009\/03\/27\/short-outline-long-outline-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Outline, Long Outline, Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"


\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My outlining will probably go through three stages.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(1) Short Outline – \u00a0basic story arc of the book<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(2) Long Outline – list of scenes, with conflict-response for each scene<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(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<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* * *<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
My word count, however, often suffers from bloat, perhaps brought on by adverb retention, but often as a result of overindulging in subplots.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Wife<\/div>\n
Friend<\/div>\n
Husband<\/div>\n
Son<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Son<\/div>\n
Husband<\/div>\n
Friend<\/div>\n
Wife<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
…like sky reflecting on water.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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.\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Opps.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I may have to shuffle my characters’ sections around a bit.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* * *<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The picture shows a craftsman cutting down the outline<\/b><\/a> of a carving.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My outlining will probably go through three stages. (1) Short Outline – \u00a0basic 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[385,454],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outlining","category-secret-novel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}