Can’t live with ’em, can’t write without them.
Well, okay. Technically you can write without them but I know me and I do better with an outline. A good outline keeps me on track, keeps me from floundering and from straying too far from the plot, and gives me something to gently herd characters and story line back to when they stray. A good outline also makes revisions and edits much easier. (Without an outline I tend to have multiple versions of how a scene plays out which is a nightmare in the editing phase.)
So, with that in mind, I’m outlining for November, and I can already see the headaches that it’s saving me.
Like Sutag’s advisor that double-crossed him. I decided that there was enough going on that I didn’t need a second antagonist, so he is no longer even mentioned in the outline.
And the fact the prologue that I had planned isn’t really a prologue and is going to have to be put into the main body of the book. I’m now toying with not having a prologue at all. And I’m not even certain that the former prologue should even be in the book. I’ll write it in and maybe delete it in revisions. (It takes place in the Orc Kingdom and everything around it is in the Drow/Elf kingdom and I’m not sure I like jumping back and forth between places. But we’ll see. I’m not sure I can get the needed information relayed without that scene, though. Fortunately, the outline will help me sort that out — hopefully before the first of November.)
I am kind of stuck in the outline right now. I had so many potential scenarios that I couldn’t really move forward and work on a “what happens next” scene until I figured out what happened to get them to that point. I’ve managed to get that mostly sorted out but still need to smooth out a few minor points (like who gets where first). I’m about ready to resort to writing the scenes on post cards and rearranging them, but I think that once I enter the current changes in the Word doc and type up a few more notes and such that I’ll be able to see where to go next.
I sure hope so, at any rate. October is almost half over already.
Novel Notes 