Hey y’all, so because of all the plotting and organizing I’ve put into my next novel — Project Murder House — I haven’t done a whole lot of blank-page-writing. Now, that’s my fault for letting myself get swept up in something and neglect my other book-babies, and it’s something that comes with the territory of working on multiple projects at once — especially when you intend on publishing each of them eventually. However, because of my short hiatus — like a week of no blank-page-writing — it left the first draft of Evercrown chapter 18 a hot mess. I don’t write these often, but chapter 18 was a . . . draft 0. I know, I know, shocking.
I wrote the first draft this past Wednesday and it was only three pages long . . . three pages! Never in my life have I ever written something so short — not even a short story. It was a glorified bullet point list of what happened in-story and I was completely dissatisfied, but I knew everything that needed to be there was there, so I did what any good writer does — I started editing it immediately because I was impatient and scared I had written a pile of crap lol.
I ended up editing half of it and added another page to the manuscript with details and much needed description, but it was late and my brain was hurting, so I left it alone to work on detailing more chapters of Project MH — which went well, btw. Then yesterday, I finished editing it to draft 1 and it is officially 5 pages long. That’s pretty normal for me unless the chapter involves multiple locations, so I’m much more confident in the installment and will edit it to draft 2 tomorrow — just in time to meet my weekly goals, lol.
As for Project MH, I’ve made tremendous progress. The entire novel is plotted out in bullet points that I’m now detailing into chapters. So far I’ve detailed up to chapter 11 or 12 — things are blurring together in my head lol, that’s why I write all this down — which doesn’t sound very far, but when I look at my remaining points, the list is pretty short compared to what it was. So I’m beginning to suspect Project MH will be a relatively short, fast paced novel. Under different circumstances this would worry me, but fast paced and relatively short is befitting of the murder-mystery/thriller type genre, so this just means I’ve plotted out my chapters well and only included things that were necessary. Yay me!
As I write this, however, I realize that I’ve been throwing around jargon that I never seem to explain — or never explain well — so lemme give a brief summary of my plotting process. I’ll make sure it’s to the point so no one gets bored lol.
Once I have an idea, I ask myself questions about it — who are these characters? Where are we? Why is this happening? What are these characters doing and why? Then I take the answers and ask even more questions until I have an idea of the characters involved, the location, the themes, and the goals of each character as well as my own.
With the foundations in place and grand ideas floating in my brain, I begin the thought-dump phase. I open a word-doc on my computer and let every small idea vomit onto screen — I also jot down ideas on my phone or in my writer-journal when I’m out. I keep doing this until those random ideas coalesce into connected ideas that become more complex and interwoven. In this step, world building happens naturally, as does backstory and plotting because all of these are connected in some capacity and directly effect each other.
When my random ideas have stopped being random and I can clearly see scenes and events and places growing in my story, I take each of my ideas and expand them, writing out whole scenes or subplots as bullet points as they come to me. This can be an intricate family history, a repeated action throughout the story that effects something, even intended imagery that’s meant to resonate with the reader and characters alike. At this stage nothing’s organized, but the story is gradually coming together in my head and I’m able to see scenes happening in order.
At this point, almost everything that will be in the story is written but disorganized, so I take the time to read through my notes and write them in one sentence descriptions on a second word-doc in chronological order. As I go, there will often be large gaps between major points, so I’ll sit and think how to get from one point to the next and write down the ideas that come. I allow these to be much longer depending on the detail of the ideas, but never more than ten sentences. If the idea is longer, then I’ll write it in detail on my thought-dump page and refer back to it later.
Once everything has been written in chronological order and the main plot, the subplots, the characters, the locations, the goals, the obstacles, and a clear beginning, middle, and ending have been accounted for, I go down the list of points and lump them together based on what i want in a single chapter. Now, there’ll also be things that will happen off page but will be mentioned or directly effects the story in some way that will never be shown. These points I will put in brackets so I know something has happened without needing to include it on page. I call this process detailing because, as I do this, I’ll write out in excruciating detail what will happen in the chapter by referring back to my thought-dump page. I do this until all my points are done and I’m satisfied with the flow of the story — If I’m not, then I’ll brainstorm other ideas to weave into the plot or scrap whole ideas for new ones.
So there you go, now you know my five-step process of pre-writing preparation and will hopefully understand my lingo a little better, lol. And now you can see why I’m so excited and motivated to work on detailing Project MH — it’s the last step before I begin actually writing the story and I’m so close to writing this novel it’s just about all my mind can dwell on lately.
Alright y’all, that’s gonna be it from me this time. I hope you enjoyed the post — maybe my process will even inspire some people, who knows. Remember to stay safe and keep creating! Bye!