My latest short story "The Night the Lights Came On"

Monday, July 23, 2012

On Second Thought, I'm Writing The Forth Draft


Hey guys, if you read my last post you'll see that I was very excited to possibly make one of my characters who is a favorite among my beta readers into the protagonist and main character of my novel. I was also going to start writing the prequel which would be his back story. I still might write his back story someday, but I have so many other books unrelated and very different than this one that I want to write that I am just going to do some heavy lifting and make this book work. Then I get can finally get it published and write all the other books I already have outlined and ready to go :) I want the reader to discover the worlds of my book with the characters and they can't do that if my main character has already been to these worlds and lived the life of hauling cargo from one planet to another. Also, my Pen Fights Gamepad podcast co-host Donald Conrad thinks that I have a good character with this pilot as he is because the reader doesn't know his back story. By the way if you like video games, you should check out Donald's website. He pointed out that it is like with Han Solo or Strider - when you meet them you don't know much about them and that's cool and it works well. I can still work some more of his back story into this book too. So I am going to continue with my original plan and make the two sons of the previous main character into the main characters. This book is a Young Adult book, so the main characters should be young adults. Also, they are the ones that I need to work the most on developing because people have commented that they feel like the same character instead of two separate people. I'm excited to flesh them out some more and figure out what makes them who they are. I think I'm going to write up an interview with each of them, asking them tons of questions. This seems like a good exercise to get more of an idea of who they are and what makes them tick.

I'm also trying a new method for outlining the book again before I get back into the trenches and make the forth draft. It is called The Snowflake Method. You form your story as a snowflake forms, starting out small and becoming more detailed as you go. You write one sentence that sums up your story. Then you write a paragraph, preferably a five sentence paragraph with the setup, three disasters that happen, and the resolution. Then you write a paragraph expanding each of those sentences and so on. You also do a lot of work on the characters, writing out what their own story is within your book among several other things. This is just what I need. If this sounds interesting to you go check it out and tell me what you think. I'm excited to use it to help me make my story much stronger and figure out how to get rid of the scenes that aren't moving my story forward, and which ones are. I need to add more depth to my characters, take many scenes out or condense them when they don't move the story along, and change the main character. It is something I look forward to doing. Writing the first draft of a book is thrilling, but rewriting and revising is really fun too. You get to refine it and make it more of what you want it to be. Shape and mold this big ugly thing you have made. I have a lot of work to do, but it's work I look forward too. I will get this book ready for publication. My goal is to do so this year. I turn thirty next January. I want to have a full length novel published before my birthday. Wish me luck, and thanks for stopping by!

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