Villains

I wonder how other writers do their outlines.  I have a feeling that each of them has a particular method in how they plan out their stories.  Maybe they set up a formula and plot out the elements that belong to it.  Maybe they do character charts or focus on settings.

I've written twenty short stories (all unpublished) and all of them without an outline.  I'm fine with this.  It's fun to bounce off a couple ideas, think of one or two cool characters and as soon as I hit the keyboard, see what happens.  And when I mess up the first draft, it's easy enough to rewrite 8000 words and do it right the next time.  That's what I'm doing with "Raven Eyes the Daymare" and I don't mind major revisions for the second draft.  It just makes the story better.

Length makes a difference, though.  I've tried to discovery write several novels in the past and they all ended horribly.  This was especially evident in my last novel attempt Blood Top.  I was only six chapters away from the end.  So close... but I'd written myself into a hole.  There were three major plot holes that started from chapter 4 and I realized that the ending I had written did not fit with the beginning or the ending that I wanted to write.  I stared at the manuscipt and knew that I would have to rewrite not only the beginning but large swathes of scenes that all throughout the manuscript.  It was over 78000 words (356 pages) worth of manuscript that I would have to shred.  I asked myself if I cared enough to try and change that.  I didn't.

I set it aside and began writing Ness Swan.  Same thing.  I tried discovery writing that one, nearly 200 pages in before realizing that it was too convoluted and long.  Midway through was when I decided to try outlining and that is making the difference.

The frustrating thing about novel-writing is that there just isn't a class available to take for beginners.  It's all trial-and-error.  (I've taken creative writing classes.  They don't help with this particular avenue.)  Outlining is becoming much of the same thing.  It's not enough to know that I need to plan out a novel.  I have to figure out what the best way for me to outline a novel.

It's been less than a month but I've already learned something invaluable for me: I have to plan out my villains before my heroes.  Heroes are easy for me.  I've been discovery writing them forever and I know what I want them to do.  What is not easy for me are the villains.  Ness Swan is especially a challenge because I have two major forces: terrorists and the mafia.  Now, I am never going to get around to telling their whole story in the manuscript because the story is not about them.  But I'm finding it invaluable to plan out their story in the outline.  I need to know what they're thinking behind-the-scenes, how things tie together for them and exactly how they are going to ruin the heroes' lives.  Not something I expected that I would need to focus on.  Am I ever glad that I am now.