Holly Lisle's Blog, page 39

Fifth Outline Finished! All 30 scenes, and a solid ending to the five-book series

Done, DONE, DONE!!!

I didn’t see the ending coming — had no clue how I was going to get there — and then, as it so often does, my muse gave a wicked little giggle and whispered the really terrible thing I could do to my Main Character…

And when I did that, everything else fell together beautifully.

I now have two novels written in first draft, three novels outlined in 30-scene line-for-scene outlines… and the ending that’s worth fighting to beat.

I’ll say this. The ending is good enough that I might not be able to beat it.

(See me saying that loudly? I’m saying that because every time I do, my Muse whispers “…wanna bet?…” And goes out of its way to prove me wrong. Every time it does, I win, because I get an even better ending.)

So… I’m going to take off the rest of the week from fiction to let everything from the outlining process cool.

Instead, I’ll get caught up on several thousand emails (I wish I were exaggerating), and hang out a bit more in the forums, and make some Writer Merch for my HollysWritingClasses.com folks.

Monday, I’ll show up for work and set up the document for Ohio Book Three, and see if I can get the first scene or two written.

I love this world, I love these stories… and BOY, do I love what I’m heading towards in Book 5.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Get Holly’s Free Fiction Sampler, plus Weekly Fiction Updates

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Today’s words funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in each book’s acknowledgements.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Sign up for Holly’s Thursday Writing Tips

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

A Tale of Ten Sentences — the first third of Book 5 starts coming together

So…

This morning I ended up deleting one of yesterday’s primary story conflicts, replacing it with something bigger, deeper, and more meaningful, and coming up with the fourth and final story conflict — which had eluded me yesterday.

I then ALSO hammered out the first ten 30-word story sentences. (Raw concepts for the first ten chapters of book five.)

This took me the full three hours of my fiction time, required a lot of writing, tossing, reconsidering, talking to myself, and checking back on the previous four outlines to make sure I wasn’t dropping essential threads, or forgetting what I want to accomplish in the last book of this first five-book series.

What do I want to accomplish?

Book Five of series one has to give the entire series a complete, conclusive ending. No cliffhangers, no primary stories dropped or forgotten, no cheating. 

And what I did today was a solid start on that.

I’m happy with what I got — EVEN THOUGH I know damn well by the time I’m writing book five, I’ll have something better.

Here’s the thing I’ve discovered for my own work: To write something BETTER, first I have to write SOMETHING.

And today was a pretty good day of “write something.”

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Get Holly’s Free Fiction Sampler, plus Weekly Fiction Updates

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Today’s words funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in each book’s acknowledgements.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Sign up for Holly’s Thursday Writing Tips

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Today I figured out three of the four primary problems to solve in Book 5

I had a lot of “Monday stuff” to deal with that could not be put off, so I got started late on the Ohio Book 5 outline.

Today was figuring out secondary story arcs for my primary characters who are NOT my MC.

Tomorrow, I’ll work on my main character’s primary story arc for the final book in the series.

And then get as many line-for-scene Sentences as I can.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Get Holly’s Free Fiction Sampler, plus Weekly Fiction Updates

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Today’s words funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in each book’s acknowledgements.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Sign up for Holly’s Thursday Writing Tips

The line-for-scene outline for Ohio #4 is done — #5 will wait until Monday

I got into work early this morning (have been writing since about 6:30 AM), and while I thought I’d only need to do eleven scenes to finish the outline, I ended up reworking most of what I got yesterday… replacing stuff that didn’t age well overnight with stronger conflicts — and finished the Ohio #4 line for scene outline just now.

I’m going to let the final book outline wait until Monday. I need to come at it fresh — I know the BIG conflict for that book already, but I want to give the elements I discovered today have a chance to percolate over the weekend so that I don’t go with the obvious approach to the story.

There is an obvious approach.

I want something better.

So now I’m going to see if I can understand how to set up a Teespring shop so that I can make some spiffy writer’s merchandise for my HollysWritingClasses.com folks.

I’ve already designed the merch. Created it numerous times. Had it disappear as soon as I tried to add it to a shop.

So… YouTube.

Wish me luck.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Get Holly’s Free Fiction Sampler, plus Weekly Fiction Updates

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Today’s words funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in each book’s acknowledgements.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Sign up for Holly’s Thursday Writing Tips

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Nineteen LFS sentences on Ohio #4 (out of 30)

My entire body of fiction progress today has been 19 Story Sentences. In raw word count, that’s (at max) 570 words (and I know a few of the  Sentences came in a word or two under 30).

But each of those Sentences has been tough to get — each includes the protagonist, antagonist, conflict, setting, and twist for the critical action of one chapter of the novel.

In other words, I figured out just under two thirds of the structure for the fourth book in one sitting — which is pretty good.

Tomorrow, I’ll have eleven more Sentences to go, including the last one… which has to both end the story and foreshadow the primary conflict in Book 5.

I know what that conflict needs to be. Have NO CLUE how I’m going to work that into the end of Four, though.

So tomorrow should be a lot of fun.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Get Holly’s Free Fiction Sampler, plus Weekly Fiction Updates

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Today’s words funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in each book’s acknowledgements.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Sign up for Holly’s Thursday Writing Tips

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

kofiWidgetOverlay.draw('hollylisle', { 'type': 'floating-chat', 'floating-chat.donateButton.text': 'Support Me', 'floating-chat.donateButton.background-color': '#f45d22', 'floating-chat.donateButton.text-color': '#fff' });

Finished Book 3 Outline, Three Scenes into Book 4 — and the mysterious origins of the funny bits.

As I’ve mentioned before, I outline. One 30-word sentence per chapter (knowing even as I do it that I will write extra, unexpected scenes; will write AGAINST some planned, outlined scenes; and will come up with some shit out of nowhere that suddenly has to be in the book, and that changes everything).

Mine is a messy, gory, grubby process that leaves a lot of bent and broken stuff in its wake — which is why I am the Small God of ferocious One Pass Revision.

But first, I outline. 

And today I finished the Book 3 outline, and got three GOOD scenes into book 4.

Things are twisting, shifty, getting messy and scary and grim in the main storyline — and the funny stuff never appears in the outline. The funny stuff only happens when I’m actually writing, when my Node Of Perversity observes that one character has a bad addiction… and then follows another character unknowingly feeding that character’s addiction to its logical conclusion.  

Which made me laugh my ass off, and made Matt, my editor (and husband), laugh so hard he snorted. That almost never happens, so it was a huge win.

But that’s all shit I can’t plan.

The PLAN is dark, and twisty, and dangerous, and filled with people I love getting deeper into muck they’re going to have a helluva time surviving.

I just have faith that Smartass Holly will show up while I’m writing that stuff, and make all the rest of us laugh.

 

No word count. It’s pointless in outlining. But finishing Outline 3 and getting partway into Outline 3 is GOOD progress.

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Get Holly’s Free Fiction Sampler, plus Weekly Fiction Updates

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Today’s Words Funded by my Ko-Fi Supporters

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Sign up for Holly’s Thursday Writing Tips

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Good Ohio Novels day, but laundry awaits

Got a bunch of new scenes outlined, but now have chores, and I’m behind.

So just this promise that I’ll give better details tomorrow.

March and Monday blew in sunny… and exciting.

GOOD, GOOD WRITING DAY!

To start with, I came up with the overall story sentences for the last three books in the series. These are broad, general sentences (no more than 30 words apiece) that just include both the good guys , the ambivalent guys, and the bad guys, and the big issue between them in each of the three remaining books.

Got that completely finished.

Next I started the detail outlining of Book 3 — first coming up with an overall concept for what the action of the middle book needs to be, and then outlining with 30-words-or-fewer sentences for each chapter. These sentences let me understand the single most important thing that needs to happen in that part of the book.

I’m shortcutting a bit, doing just one sentence per chapter, because while I almost always have two or even three scenes in a chapter, I’ve discovered that some of the very best scenes I get come spontaneous follow-ups in-chapter to the planned scenes.

I write best when I give myself a fair amount of elbow room. An absolute maximum of thirty words per chapter gives me that.

When I’m done with the Line-For-Chapter outline for book three, I’ll start writing the third novel… because…

I know there is absolutely no point in outlining (even provisionally) for books 4 and 5, because my very best stuff in each novel arises from my spontaneous fighting against the outline, and no matter what I planned for 4 and 4, by the time I’ve written 3, I’ll be able to do something better.

So, that was my writing day. Off to do all the rest of the stuff.

Following up: To Merch, or not to Merch…

I got some truly excellent feedback on offering merchandise for the Ohio Novels ahead of publishing them.

Some of it was answering the “What kind of merch do you like?” question, and the answers gave me some great ideas.

Some of it was answering “Who is the real audience for merch?” and the answer was, Fans of the series. Of which there are none yet, because the books aren’t out there yet.

And some of it was: You know, I’m a writer and I really miss the HollysWritingClasses.com merch.

To which I reply — Yeah. Me, too. I loved my HWC t-shirts, and they’re about worn to death.

So for now, I’m going to bring back the HollysWritingClasses.com merch for writers. I’ll do spiffy products through a shop on my Ko-fi page so they’ll be easy to find.

The Ohio Novel merch will have to wait until the books are in print — at which point, I have some great ideas for what to offer, thanks to you guys.

Fighting with Myself — my next week or two, and the process of figuring out the rest of the series.

Today and for the next few days, I’m going to be writing five provisional synopses. 

What are these, and why would I write them?

The way I write, I have an outline — but it’s very, very light.

Each chapter (which can include multiple scenes) receives one sentence of no more than 30 words to cover the movement of characters through conflict in that part of the story, following the PACTS formula.

PROTAGONIST

ANTAGONIST

CONFLICT

TWIST

SETTING

Or, in story sentence form, Protagonist versus antagonist in a setting with a twist.

This is great in that it allows me to never write a scene in which a character is sitting at a table thinking (frequently whining) about how shit life is.

This is bad in that my characters, in the heat of engaging in interesting action in exciting places, frequently decide to take the story into their own hands, and do things I didn’t plan — and because my characters are both fragments of me, and fragments of things they pull out of the damned ether, their actions can sometimes shock the hell out of me while being worlds better than what I’d planned.

(Occasionally, they kill off someone I love… but I’ve already told that story.)

But back to the Story Sentence process, and two necessarily vague examples of how fighting my Line-for-Scene is making things challenging for Book 3.

1) My MC (main character) and her cat went out to meet with an adorable live teddy bear who was supposed to be important later. The teddy bear was lying to me about what he was doing there, however. My main character saw through his lies, and dealt with him based on who he really was rather than who I’d believed him to be, and a major plot point to a part of the world I thought I understood went sideways.

2) In the very first scene of the first chapter, I’m suddenly writing about trying to save a guy I really didn’t like when I first met him. It was a good scene, and I was happy with it. Then Mr. Unlikable showed me who he really was, and the price he’d paid to become that guy, and all of a sudden I fell in love with the little bastard. Was sitting there with tears running down my cheeks, knowing that he isn’t a throwaway. Instead, he’s a primary character throughout the series — and one of the most unlikely heroes I’ve ever written. So right at the midpoint of the novel where I met the real him, (and where — in general — you known what the story is about for 45,000 words or so) the ENTIRE focus of the second book changed from being about a different character to being about him. So all the shit I’d planned for that OTHER character is being moved around, and will have to be spread in pieces through the entire five books.

I will note that it’s entirely possible to write to a strict outline and follow it.

I will also note that I have never successfully done this.

I’ve always fought against the outline, because if I already know what’s going to happen as I’m writing, in the back of my mind where the fiction lives, that story has already been told and there’s no point telling it again. 

However… I do have to have some big, planned events in place. Stuff that the rest of the story can build around.

For the rest of this week, and maybe some of next week, I’ll be going through and building summaries of what I’ve done in the first two books, picking out those big planned events and deciding how to use them in the next three books so that they fit…

Writing rough 200-word synopses for the next three books (with the understanding that this process is usually as effective as herding cats…

And then, when I think I sort of know where I might be going, I’ll write 30 PACTS sentences (one for each chapter) into the line-for-chapter outline for Book 3.

There is NO DAMN REASON to try this process yet for Books 4 and 5.

Because Book 3, like Books 1 and 2, will turn out to be almost nothing like what I’d planned — but will be all the better for me having to fight the outline to come to the better fictional truth that’s living inside it.

And SOME TECHIE STUFF for FICTION WRITERS

I use Freeter Pro to keep my projects where I can find them. The screenshot below is the current state of the Ohio Novels.

The two books at the top are Ohio 1 and 2, which are currently in Complete Unrevised First-Draft State.

With a series like the one I’m writing (which is unlike any series I’ve written before) I discovered that revising each book as I finished it was pointless. I’ll have to know the ending before I can revise the beginning.

In this project, I’m essentially living in the non-magic version of the world, so I don’t have to draw maps — but I’m discovering the physics of the alternate universe as I go — and while I know the magic rules for the story, and a lot of the critters, and some important characters, each of these is bringing new parts of the universe to me as I write.

I just met Crazy Tree yesterday. That was a shock, lemme tell you.

Having Freeter, however, lets me keep this whole project and all its interconnected pieces carefully labeled, and just one click away.

If you’re a writer dealing with dozens of different projects, and you need to be able to find each of them (or each part of them) with one click, this is my favorite piece of software ever. $29 bucks, no subscription. New version updates will require payment, but there hasn’t been one yet. I love this, and recommend it: https://freeter.io/ (NOT AN AFFILIATE LINK).