So, on Friday I mentioned that I’d started outlining my project for November. It’s a science fiction novel that’s been kicking around in my head for a lot of years (long before I’d even heard of NaNoWriMo).
It still doesn’t have a name but for now we’ll call it The Desert Planet. (The Word doc name is my usual ever-(not)-helpful “NaNoWriMo 2017 Outline.”)
Anyhow, I thought it might be fun to explore where the idea came from and trace it from that one bit of inspiration through to the final project.
This novel started as a single scene that hit me as I walked out of an air conditioned building in downtown Pittsburgh and into a wall of city heat.
And that’s all the scene was – the main character walking out of an air conditioned building and into a wall of heat.
Then a second character came up to him. Said second character was supposed to be his guide on a rescue mission.
And for a long time that’s where the whole thing sat.
Throughout the years a couple more scenes got added inside my head, but nothing major was happening, just two characters traveling through the desert.
Then last Wednesday, years after the initial idea, it suddenly had a prologue, some background, and a plot twist. (What brought it to the forefront after all that time? Unseasonably hot weather that hit me when I stepped out of my much cooler house.)
So, I started outlining.
So far I have the prologue outlined, and the first two scenes.
Scene two used to be scene one, until I decided that there was too much telling (it was MMC1 reflecting on the mission briefing he’d just left) so I made the briefing scene one so I could show it instead.
Scene two is MMC1 meeting his guide for the mission – one of the planet’s natives.
It still doesn’t have a title, and none of the main characters have a name. One minor character does, but the main characters are MMC1, MMC2, and FMC. I also need names for the planet, the city, the natives, their tribes, and the enemy.
But, hey! I have over five months to name everything, right?
Novel Notes 