My Approach to Outlining for Book 3 (The Handyman’s Justice)
Hi all. I’d finished the most recent draft of The Handyman’s Curse a few days ago. The next step will be to have Microsoft Word read it aloud to me. Then I’ll send it on to my Beta readers. I want to wait a week before I do that—just because I think it’s a good idea to step back for a bit and clear my head before jumping back in.
So, it’s a good time to spend a little while on Book 3, The Handyman’s Justice. I’m very much a Gardener rather than an Architect (I use these two words in place of the traditional Pantser and Plotter, respectively, as, like most people, I detest these two titles). I didn’t outline my first two books because 1) I simply don’t like to outline 2) I don’t really know my characters very well until I put them on the page and they start interacting with each other. By letting the characters grow into their own space like this, I think I get more depth out of my cast.
As a result, though, I am soooo sloowww in writing my stories. I’m constantly changing and reordering scenes as the characters and the plot take shape. Well, by now, I know my main characters, and I have a decent idea of where The Handyman’s Justice is going. So, I’m trying one of the many approaches available for outlining. I wrote the plot as I know it today on one page (okay, it actually took a page and a half, but that’s okay.) That was yesterday’s exercise.
Today I needed to expand that one page. I decided to do it by thinking of scenes and also trying to map events to a Save the Cat (Snyder/Jessica Brody) approach. I summarized the first six scenes (that’s probably going to be around 6,000 words—I’m guessing.)
Now I have all kinds of questions circling in my head. I believe I’m going to need multiple viewpoints. In a suspense/thriller approach, one might introduce a character, take him/her to a climactic moment, and then pivot to another character. Take that character to a climactic moment and then either pivot to another character or go back to the first character. This is a good way to keep the tension mounting. So far, that’s how I’ve written my first few chapters so far.
However, if you read books like Jeff Gerke’s excellent The First 50 Pages, he makes a compelling case for sticking with your protagonist for at least the first 40 pages so that the reader connects to your main character and central plot. Throw a bunch of viewpoint characters and plot lines at the reader early in the book, and you’re liable to cause too much confusion. Take a moment to ground the reader.
What I’m going to point out as a good thing is that since I’m acting as an architect at the moment, I’m hitting these stylistic questions before I do most of my writing. I have many thoughts on these two approaches.
One, if this were the first book of the series, I might lean toward focusing on the protagonist for 40 pages, but if my reader reads the first two books, maybe there is not as great a need to stay with the main character.
Two, I’ve probably shot myself in the foot by writing a cross-genre series. If I were writing a straight thriller, I’d probably favor the approach that maximizes tension over focusing on the main character for 40 pages. If I were writing a straight urban fantasy, maybe I’d stick with the protagonist.
Three, it’s a mystery as well as anything else. I want to tell my reader something about my victim before she dies, and since I don’t plan to have my protagonist walking hand-in-hand with the victim, one of the first few scenes has to be in someone else’s viewpoint (the victim).
Four, maybe I should open the first forty pages of the protagonist and then start the scene-hopping, tension-amping bit.
Five. Just pick one that feels right and go with it. It’s all about what mood you want to set. Trust your gut and keep going.
Ah. The joys of writing. There is so much to writing where you pick two from column A and three from column B. And then there are other things that are more black-and-white than gray (rules that you violate at your own peril). I’m going to keep going with the outlining for now and see how it goes. Has anyone else run up against this sort of issue? I’d enjoy hearing any experiences, thoughts, or advice.
Until the next blog…