Types of Outlines

I've mentioned before about the importance of outlining in a previous post. This is going to go into a little more depth about the different types of outlines that I've heard of or tried out myself. It will be a general list with a few examples.

• Sequence Boards. I call them Sequence Boards because you lay out your novel in a sequence of how the scenes go. You write one scene on an index card until you've plotted out your entire novel. This is my go-to method. It's nice because you can rearrange scenes to see what works better.You could also do this in a notebook, the only thing you wouldn't be able to do is rearrange the scenes to see how they fit.

• A General Outline. This is the generic outline you'd use for taking notes for class. For example: 1.) Chapter One a)character introduced b.) plot starts i.) something else goes here. Things like that. It's not a method I use anymore but it works for some people. 

• The Snowflake Method. I've never used this method before but I know several writers who have and found it very helpful. Here is a link if you'd like to take a look at it. 

• Storyboards. It's similar to a Sequence Board but a little more creative. Sometimes when I need to do something artsy for my writing, I make a Sequence Board. It has all kinds of arrows and pictures. It's fun.

• Beginning-Middle-End. There is an actual name for it but I don't know what it's called. This is basically the least amount of planning I do and it's usually for short stories. I need to know my beginning, my middle, and my end. It helps me stay on track. Sometimes I use this method with another method because it helps me understand my plot better. 

• Mind Map Method. I've only ever used this once and it was a general guide of how certain things happened in my novels. It's not the best method but at least you can have parts of your story planned out. For example, in my novel, my character meets a lot of people and these people become important to the plot. I had laid out when, where, and how he met them. Then added a little bit about them that I needed to know. If you ever used a mind map before, it was kind of hard to get everything down in one word or small phrase but I managed it...somehow.

There are tons of ways to plan your novels. You can look up a ton of them online but it's something that every writer should do to stay on track with their writing. Keep away from those filler scenes! Noted, we all write them from time to time but that doesn't make it okay. I end up deleting them during the revision stage (which you should). Outlines will help when it comes to writer's block. You know what comes next and push ahead. Even if it does suck. You can polish that up during the revision process.

Know Your Characters

Knowing your character is a must when writing your novel. They are usually a selling point to most stories since you want your readers to connect with them. So, you want to know all about your character and how they will react to things, to make them seem more believable.

This is a task that can happen differently for each character but for this post, it's about developing your main character.

• What is your character's name and age? These are pretty basic when it comes to writing but they can be important. Age will explain a lot of things about how they view things. How the world sees them. Their experiences as well. A 30-something-year-old is going to have way more experiences than a 16-year-old.

• What changed in their life that made this story important? I've read a lot about characters and this is a common thing that comes up. Something has to change in the character's normal life. So what made this change so much more different.

• What was their past like? Someone's past is important to who they are in your current novel. Even childhood scars can still effect them. Make connections with their personality and how it changed them.

• What kind of personality do they have? This connects with the past question. Something might have a huge influence on who they are in your novel. This is important to how they will react to certain instances in your novel. And make sure that you follow it. 

• Name some of their flaws. Flaws aren't the same as imperfections. You characters need to have flaws that will conflict with something in the story. It has to cause some kind of issues.

• What is their culture? Culture can have a big impact on who they are as a person or some of their strange habits.

• What do they look like? This one can be tough. You don't need to know every single detail of your character unless it's absolutely important. If their tattoo is nothing more than a mark on them when they got stupidly drunk and really has no purpose...then we don't really care. But if the tattoo becomes a mark that causes your character to become a target, then we might need to know about it. 

These are the absolute basics of what you need. Characters are another thing you want to develop as your write. You want them to grow. You want to learn somethings about them too. By giving them room to grow, you'll build a more realistic character.

WriYe Blogging Circle: Planning Or Pantsing

If you are a planner, what part of planning is your favorite? If you’re a pantser, what is your favorite part of pantsing?

Bonus: Show us your NaNo planning - handwritten or computer screen!

I love planning out my novels. A lot of people don't enjoy this part of the process but I do. Getting deep into my novels is probably one of my favorite parts, aside from writing the actual novels. I love building my own worlds - which I do a lot.

My favorite part about planning is probably the outlining portion. I like knowing where my novel needs to go. It also helps me consider things I need to discover about the world I'm planning for. It's good to know where I want my story to go, too. The world slowly builds itself as I outline or even as I write.

Building Your World

World Building is a pretty important part of writing a novel, especially, if you've created your own world. You have to basically build up your world from scratch which is fun and addicting (if you are me and many other people I know). Even writing a novel in the modern times will need some world building. Knowing your settings is important so it will remain consistent throughout your novel.

The thing about world building, it that people take it too far and they end up losing sight of their novel. It's happened to me and my friend does it all of the time. I'm trying to get her to tone it down a bit because she goes nuts with world building. It tends to make her unmotivated to write.

Remember, you only need to know the important things.

This is more for the Fantasy/Sci-fi people but they can also work in other styles.

• What kind of government does your world have? This might be important because it can change the way the world functions. You've got to keep in mind how different governments work and how it effects the community. 

• Does your world have magic? If it does, how does it work? What are the limitations? Magic needs limitations. You can't have save your character from everything. Nothing is more annoying that limitless power.

• Where does your story take place? I feel like this should have been one of the first bullet points but I'm just going to go with it. What the name of the place your story take place in? What's it like there? Describe, briefly the place in which your story will be.

• Do you have any strange creatures? If it does, list a few and a brief description only if they are important to the story.

• Is the world part of the plot? Meaning, is the world falling apart, dying, being destroyed and your character has to save it or seek refuge somewhere else. You know, things like that.

• Only add important detail. You don't need to know everything about your world before you start the novel, just the key things that are important.

• Build the world as you write. You are going to come up with new material for your world as you write. It's okay to learn about your world as your character shows you.

This is as basic as I can get the list. Just remember not to over-build your world and allow for some room to play with it. You can add further detail as needed.

If you novel deals with military, you might want to know a few things about your military. Or if your story has to deal with slavery, you've got to know the system. Things like that. Ask yourself a lot of questions that will help improve your novel and make it seem like a real place.

Take what you need and go from there.

Introduction to Planning a Novel

It's October. Just a little under a month away from National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I figured it would be the best time to do this kind of post. It's a planning post, kind of. It's more like an overview of what I'm planning on posting this month. Since it is close to NaNoWriMo, I've decided to do a planning series where it goes through basic points of planning.

What is planning in a novel? It's where you figure out what your novel is going to be about, your characters, and your setting. It's simple. There are various ways to go about planning, but these are some of the key things that are consistent for me when I plan.

Things I plan on covering:

• World Building. World building is essential to a lot of writing even in contemporary settings. You've got to know key/important places and why they are important. 

• Character Building. This is also important since characters are kind of needed to tell a story, whether it be human or non-human. You've got to have some kind of information down about them.

• Plotting and Outlining. I'm a huge supporter of outlining. It's a good way to track what you are doing in your story. My reasons are in a different post that I will link HERE.

Unfortunately, there are only enough weeks in the month for three more posts but these are the bare essentials for planning a novel. Especially if you writing for NaNoWriMo. It's easy to lose motivation during the month it's best to know where you are going with your novel. 

But the one thing you need is an idea. You've got to start somewhere. If you don't have an idea then you need to get one. How you go about getting ideas for novels/stories is up to you. I can't tell you how to generate your ideas as they vary from person to person. Do some exploration, you'll find something to write about.

The Editing Process: Slacking

So, this last week kind of sucked when it came to editing. I didn't work on Dowsers at all. I instead worked on The Survival Agreement because it needed some work. I'm going to have to get started on editing my short story for that contest. I really need to get things done.

Basically I'm slacking. I did finish planning my two novels and created the cover art for it already. I'm actually pretty happy about it. I put aside my editing to do this so I really need to get back on track.

Writing Traditions

Traditions
Zombies are a July tradition here at Wriye. Do you have a writing tradition of your own? How did it come about?

Bonus: Share an example of your tradition!

I think the closest thing to writing traditions I have are NaNoWriMo and WriYe. Even the prepping is part of the tradition because it gets me excited to do what I have planned. Then I fall flat on my face (with WriYe) half way through. But I try. I really do.

How I came about NaNoWriMo was by accident one year. I don't even remember how it happened, I just stumbled upon it my Freshmen year of high school (12 years ago) and I've kept going since. I don't normally get involved with the local writing events that happens with NaNo. I mainly just use the site to keep track of my word count, and to lurk in the forums from time to time.

I came about WriYe a few years later. I can't remember how though. Probably by accident - like everything else.  WriYe is a huge commitment and I have a hard time staying on the forums for the whole year but that doesn't mean I forget to accomplish my writing goals. Though, I do tend to lose track of where I'm at in my goals.

That's really all I have to say about my traditions involving writing. I don't really participate in any other writing events, not yet anyway. I'm trying to get everything organized and I have too many manuscripts to edit. Though, I might stop editing from time to time to write a new novel to add to the stack.

...Editing my own work is hard but I'm slowly getting there.

Keeping Up with 750 words

This week was a bit tricky. My work hours make it a bit harder for me to fit in my writing time and with my class starting on Monday, it's going to make it even harder. 750 words a day becomes hard. Though I managed to keep up with it on top of the things I had to do for work.

I can't say how many words I wrote for this week, but as of right now my monthly total stands at 30,121 words. With editing, I clocked in my 10 hours for the month. Now, I'm going to prepare to work on it in February. I need to print everything out.

As far as reading goes, I'm not doing too well in that department. The book I picked isn't really holding my interest which isn't good. I'm going to push myself through it to see how it goes.
There is a whole list of books I want to read this year and I'm stuck on the first one.

Overall, it was a pretty good week.

Planning For 2016

2015 was a huge fail. I had a lot of plans but I didn't leave any room for changes in my plans. This is where I tend to go wrong. I bite off way more than I can chew. So, in 2016, I plan on taking it easy. I'll just work on getting these goals in one at a time rather than having huge plans for myself.

• Write one whole novel series (first draft only) - There should be about 5 novels total. I need to do a lot of planning when it comes to this series but I think it's something I can do in December.
• Edit District Pluto Series (to the second draft) - I don't want to try to do too much so I'm sticking to the low end here. I'm already on the third story and I know that the last two are going to need a lot of reworking. If I happen to finish the second draft of all the the stories, then I'll work on the next edit. 
• Read some books - No set goal for this and I don't have plans for writing reviews for this unless I really feel like it. This year, my reading was on a low end of the spectrum, I plan on reading at least 10 books this year. 

My ultimate goal is to maintain some kind of balance. My work life is getting very busy. I just started a full time job 3 months ago at a daycare and my hours aren't always consistent. On top of that, I'll be going back to school to get my bachelor's degree.

It's going to be a busy year. I plan on trying to make it all work out. But the first thing that I need to do is plan out the 5 novels I want to write. I have a lot to do by the end of December.

Progress Update: First Edit

It has happened. I finally finished editing the first draft of the Sacrificial Son. I'm not sure if it's going to be called that but that's the title I have now. It will be what I'll call it until I figure out another name for it. Anyway, it's finished. I'm letting it settle for a moment before I go through it again.

I already know there are scenes that need work. Mostly the ending scenes. They are important to the story since it introduces a much bigger plot that encompasses the series. This editing process was a journey. I'm still trying to figure out what works for me but there are some things that I find really help. I'll be sharing them in another post later down the road.

For now, I'm going to continue planning my new novel The Escapist. That is also a temporary title. I only picked that because it was the only thing that fit for now. I don't have all of the details worked out yet so the title is more than likely going to change. As far as planning goes for this novel, I think I figured out a fair bit but not enough to get started yet.

Planning Notebooks

When I first started writing I never really cared about what kind of notebook I used when it came to planning. That was until I started getting annoyed with the smallest things that made me ditch the notebook all together and try to find something else. I tried keeping my notes on a computer but that didn't last long at all. I didn't realize how picky I was until I found the notebook that worked for me.

I went through a lot of phases. The regular A4 notebooks that are always on sale and even when they aren't, they are still really cheap. They were too big and I ended up bending the spirals because I tend to carry around some heavy things that squish them.

A5 journals are generally what I like to go for. They are the perfect size to fit in almost any bag and the hardcover versions are durable. I'm not talking about the spiral bound ones but the perfect bound. They don't have spirals that I have to worry about and they just hold everything I need in them just fine.

There are a variety of these kinds of journals. Moleskine. Ecosystem journals. Piccadilly. Piccadilly is my favorite and currently, they sell for a decent price. These journals are just for novel planning or for when I plan out a short story series.

There are some saddle-stitched journals that work just as well for the more smaller pieces I work on. Some short stories that I write that are stand-alone stories tend to fit these better than a full sized journal. Again, the a5 journals are the size of choice. They are much easier to carry that way.

Lately, with the saddle-stitched journals (even the stapled version), I've been adding them to my felt fauxdori my sister and I made one day. Though, I use my felt fauxdori for more journaling purposes than planning.

I can see how this method would be great for planning though. It allows books and other things to be added or changed out once they are no longer what you need. This could be perfect for when you are writing a huge series and need to split some things apart. It would help with organization. There is a definite advantage to having this as a planning method of choice. Also, it helps that the inserts are easy (and cheap) to make.

There are still several options I haven't tried yet. Eventually, I'll explore that but for now, I'm going to stick to what I have since that is my only option at the moment.

Progress Update: Nothing

With everything I did this month, I only have 15 hours of editing. I really need to crack down on this but I don't know if I can. I think I'm going to have to re-plan my mornings. If I can get a could hours of editing in the morning, I should be fine for the rest of the day.

I won't get muddled with other things if I start then. So, my new goal will be to wake up earlier and fit in a few hours. This first story is taking much longer than it should. Thankfully, my next story won't have as many scenes to add. I just wanted to make the obstacles seem like more of a challenge since it was kind of lame before.

The planning for my other story is coming along. I can't decide on a setting. I'm leaning toward one and it's going to take a lot of world building if I want to do it that way...I just might because it will be fun. I do love some world building. If it ends up taking too long to plan, I'll just write it for NaNoWriMo.

Progress Update: Not Going to Plan

So this week started off strong but fell pretty rapidly. I managed to get 5.5 hours of editing finished. That got me through all 26 pages. I'm in the middle of taking the mark-ups and adding them in. Unfortunately, I have to write a few scenes in and I'm having a hard time figuring out where to place some of them. There are some places that I know I'm going to have to go back and fix several things before it has some kind of flow.

It's not going to plan. I wanted to finish the first short story this week but I procrastinated. It is around the time I normally have a fall out with everything I'm doing at the beginning of the year. I'll just have to put in as much editing as I can tomorrow. 

As far as writing goes...I'm not sure how many I wrote but I didn't write the 7 pages I wanted but I did make some progress. I just need to think of where I want this to go. I didn't plan ahead. I should have. That is something I'll have to work on.

I started planning out a novel for April. It's my month for a break. I'm pretty excited about this new novel. It is untitled as of now but I will get one as soon as I know what I'm doing.

Progress Update: Getting Ready For More Editing

Weekly Progress

Editing Hours: 4

Words Written (Typed): 8,915

Pages Handwritten: 2.5

Summary: It wasn't my best editing week but I did manage to get in a fair bit of writing. I need to write some more to catch up with Hush.

That list and summary should be enough to tell you how my weekly progress went. Next week it will be March and I'll have a whole new project to edit. I know I'm not even close to being finished with Call of the Piper but, that's too bad. I planned to edit District Pluto for Editing Month (March). These are short stories so they shouldn't take as long as Call of the Piper but it will still be a pain in the butt.  

  

When I'm done editing District Pluto, I'll go back to Call of the Piper, if not sooner. There are 5 short stories and my goal is to have at least 1 of them completely edited by the end of the month. I'm thinking that it's time to switch it up. My muse needs a rest. I've been editing the same novel for almost a year. These short stories shouldn't take too long to edit. I hope it won't take too long to edit. 

Now, I'm about to go backwards a bit. I already mentioned my plans for next week (next month) but I didn't say anything about Tell a Fairy Tale Day! That's on Thursday. I already made stuff for my crafting blog for this. I get way too excited about days like this. There are a few I have marked down in my calendar. 

Overall, I'm ready to start a new month. I'm hoping to post more during the month of March, not just progress updates or blogging circle posts but other things that are writing related and less boring than my progress updates. 

Progress Update: Slacking

This week hasn't been a good week. So far, I only have 11.75 hours of editing and that isn't including today. Hopefully I'll get that count up soon.

My current novel is kicking my butt. I'm basically rewriting the whole thing and that's where it's dragging me down a bit. My new plot line keeps changing, not in a bad way, I just keep adding things. That's what I get for not giving myself room to move things around so I have to track my scenes a bit differently than I usually do. Maybe I should bust out my index cards but that motivation just isn't there.

I did read through my Hourglass series though and started marking places that need to be changed. I just needed something different to read. I won't be editing the Hourglass series until later but it will happen this year hopefully.

I'm hoping this week will be a better week. My goal is 10 hours of editing. That's all I want to get in. It is possible if I stop being so lazy.

Results of January

This January wasn't one of my best considering my goals and all but I learned a thing or two along the way about editing. I'm not sure if it's just for this particular novel but that's something I'll figure out as the year goes on.

My totals for the year are:

• Editing: 50 hours
• Writing (typed): 22,515 words
• Writing (hand-written): 1,219

I think that's all I have for this month's goals. I didn't finish editing Call of the Piper but I did figure out where I wanted to go with the story. It's not going to be perfect but after I finish rewriting some of the scenes, I'll be on the right track. I won't have to go through and change everything again.

February is going to have a nice range of goals. Some of them are more personal.

• Finish editing Call of the Piper
• Continue working on handwritten novellas
• Write Hush for the Keeping Warm in February challenge
• Consistency Challenge (750 words a day)
• WriYe Blogging Circle 
• Work on creating a healthy lifestyle
• Apply for Jobs

 That is all I have for now and frankly, that's all I really want to have for the month of February. There are going to be small challenges during the month that I might partake in but I'm not sure I'll have time. I want to keep them simple. I want to start working out again and eating better. Hell, eating more at home would be a good start.

I have my art goals that I want to do as well but I think I'll leave that for my crafting blog.

Planning For 2015

At around this time is when I normally start planning new novels for the coming year but not this time. I still have some novels that could be planned but my main focus is on editing this year. Since November was the most productive I've been in years, I have a lot stored up that needs to go through the dreadful editing stage.

It will get things onto the next level. A level I've never actually been on before. After these edits, I plan on trying a critique group. That is when my novel gets to a point where I can no longer do anything to it. That is when I know it needs another set of eyes.

At some point in 2015, I want be able to hand off my novel to someone or send pieces of my novel(s) to someone to get it looked over. None of my novels are to that point yet. A lot of them are messy and have plot holes. I need to clean them up and fill some plot holes before I can even consider being at that point.

So, now I will begin the process of planning my editing filled 2015. I already have my goals for the year. Right now will just be what I have to plan for.

1. Go through the edits of Call of the Piper so I can continue in January
2. Finish Writing Firewall
3. Print Out Hourglass to edit later
4. Clean up workspace

These are my basic things that I need to do before the end of December. It seems like a small list but I have a lot edited for Call of the Piper. I have a lot to write for Firewall. There is a lot going on in December so we'll see how this goes.