Archive for category Post Apocalypse
The Limitations of Reverse Outlining
Posted by DLThurston in Capsule, Outlining, Post Apocalypse on October 13, 2011
The process of carving Capsule apart is slow. Slow and mentally exhausting. I’m averaging about three chapters per night before my brain and eyes stage a coup and leave me insensate. Something about staring at my own writing and trying to reverse engineer it into an outline dries my eyeballs. Or maybe that’s just all the dust being kicked up by the kitchen renovations taking place on the first floor while I write in the basement.
Something about using the phrase “while I write in the basement” as part of a blog post. Nevermind.
The process is slow, but I’m pushing on, largely for the sake of the novel that will still be called Capsule. The toughest part about transitioning from the conjoined story to the split novels is pulling out the murder motivations, which entirely belong to the frustrated cultists who’ll land in Post Apocalypse. So I need everything about the murder plot that I can salvage, so I know where to start weaving in entirely different characters and motivations. It’s that age-old question: Why would someone commit murder in the 2070s if not for the influence of Tezcatlipoca? I’d like to think Shakespeare and Hemingway dealt with this same question when working on King Lear and Old Man and the Sea, respectively.
My companion and friend on this road was and is Scrivener for Windows, and thank Lit & Latte for that. I’m not drilling as much as I could with the tool, but the constant presence of a little note card beside the chapter I’m currently dissecting is keeping me sane. No hand written notes, no flipping between programs, just a friendly little note card. Pulling this novel apart is teaching me a lot of the features I’ll be using to stitch Frankenstein back together at the far end. I’ve got the file broken into chapters, but not into scenes, just because I’m not going to do the kind of rearranging in this file.
At some point I’m going to reach the end of how useful the reverse outlining is, well before I reach the end of the conjoined draft. The farther I get away from Chapter One the more I drift afield from the eventual plot of Capsule. After that I’ll probably carve out all the dream sequences that will get adapted into Post Apocalypse, and then get to outlining the two new novels. That’s probably my November project, as I doubt I’m doing Nanowrimo this year. Maybe next year with the next of the three outlines in the queue. After the post on Writers Block and Nano, I’m serious about not tackling the challenge again without a full outline ready to go.
For now, I need some eye drops.
Outlining Outlines
Posted by DLThurston in Capsule, Nickajack, Outlining, Post Apocalypse on October 10, 2011
I have a very real feeling this blog is going to turn from a focus on writing to a focus on outlining over the next few months. Especially after crafting my last post about Writers’ Block #5 and using outlines to counter it I can’t help but think about the three novels churning in my brain. The longer they stay up there, the more essential it feels to get them into some solid form, to get them outlined.
But do you want to know my dirty secret?
I’ve never done a full novel outline before.
I’ve done partial outlines, section outlines, but never felt moved to outline a novel from opening to closing scene, touching on everything in between. So I’m also going to be doing a lot of learning about the process, reading up on it, studying it, finding the tools and the methods that work best for me. In terms of tools, Scrivener for Windows looks like the clear early winner in terms of software, especially with the full release finally coming out on Halloween. I’ve been doing some poking around with it the last two weeks, going through a process akin to reverse outlining as I pick apart the manuscript that was Capsule to turn it into two new outlines. Outline one will still be called Capsule and will include all my near-futurism and the murder plotline. Outline two now has a working title of Post Apocalypse and will include all the Lovecraftian dream elements, kidnapping, and frustrated doom cultists.
Outline three will be the joint project I’m working on with my wife, a steampunk adventure novel we’re calling Nickajack, a name that I’m seriously intending to keep.
Being that I’m new to this whole outlining thing, I’m not sure how long to expect it to take. I’m hoping to get a rough outline of each of the three done by the end of the calendar year, so that I know which needs the most focus. Post Apocalypse is the most time sensitive of the stories, so might get priority for that.
I’d love to know anything you have. Articles. Books. Recommendations. Suggestions. Tools. Methods. I’m going to do my own research, but I’m stepping into a world that scares me, ground I’ve never really walked on before, and any and all guidance that can come from my blog readers is one step closer to making these novels actually work, and not just wither and die in my grey matter. Help me tell these stories!
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