Scenic Plotting

 
I'm still working on the outline for my next project. I'm almost done. I might even finish it today.
 
The project name is HoE2. You can say it as an acronym ("Aych-Oh-Eee-Too"), or pronounce it one of a couple different ways ("Hoe-Two", or "Hoes"). Your choice. The 2 is kind of a giveaway about it being a sequel or a companion novel or something like that. The HoE is also a kind of obvious acronym, I think. But then, I've read everything I've written… I will neither confirm nor deny anything. But, yeah, you're guess is probably right.
 
I took a somewhat more scenic (and organic) approach to building the story for HoE2. I started with the setting and the main character, both of which I was quite familiar with, then built the story from there. In the process I remembered a couple of action movies that I enjoyed and decided to borrow at least a few of their tropes. That got me to the point of a high-level story. 14-15 sentences that described the major movements of the story. From that list, I started creating a list of scenes. I'm letting the scenes morph the initial structure, so where I've ended up is not where I started.
Every pass through the story I get a bit closer to the end, and I see new details that I need to fill in. I'm hoping the next pass will get me to the end of the outline. Of course, the *real* "final pass" will be the actual writing. And, yes, the story will change in that pass too. I'm looking forward to that. It's kinda fun to compare where I thought I was going with where I ended up.
 
In some ways, my process with this outline feels very different from plotting other stories (like how I plotted GoSH1 or, especially, The Summoning Fire). But it's probably just another evolutionary step. A further mingling of both top-down and bottom-up approaches.
 
One part of this process that I've been focusing on is making my scenes/chapters have cliffhanger endings. Not always full-on cliffhangers, but a point of suspense. A hook to pull you into the next chapter. My first deliberate attempts at this are in GoSH1, mostly in the second half of the book. For HoE2 I decided to try for it with every chapter, beginning to end.
 
I'm curious how it will turn out.
 
Back to the story!
 
-David
 
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