In my second post, I talked about the February 10, 2017 outline that I sat on for about a year before starting to write. That outline covers what became the first four chapters of Tendrils to the Moon. When you read the book, you may be able to spot where I had to grow past that outline to develop the setting, plot, and characters. The chapters become less internally structured and they run into each other more.
So, from the very beginning I had a plan for the first act, and I always had a vague notion of what I wanted to see happen in the climax (big explosions, dramatic deaths, epic twists, etc.). The hard part was the middle. The plan for this 80,000-word novel was to basically forgo the middle--get it out of the way as quickly as possible--to get to the climax. But when I reached the middle, I identified a few more things that I wanted to achieve. Quickly my 80,000-word novel swelled to 110,000 words.
A couple of things I learned from this:
- It became more important for me to deliver on the promises inherent in the novel's premise than it was to keep to the word count I originally had in mind. Believe it or not, for a while I didn't think this story had 80,000 words in it. Then the second act happened, and the opportunities that the novel's setting presented were too exciting to pass up.
- Outlining is super important. Having a clearly developed plot and character arcs before you start writing is so, so important. Had I outlined better, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble working out story kinks on the fly and retconning previous chapters to bring them in line with what needed to happen later.
Leave a comment below and let me know what you think! I'll respond to it as soon as I can.
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