This November...

[khiemtran]

... I will mostly be outlining.

I have a specific exercise to work through and a new method to try. It seems to be working so far, in that I'm spotting problems at the outline level that would normally slip through to the first draft. The real test will be how the final result turns out.

Comments

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Zornhau uses his CQABN method to spot problems at the outline level. I once used a flow chart. :-)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I've been looking at Jack Bickham's method from Scene and Structure and, while I don't agree entirely with his approach, it's been useful. I'm trying my own method now, based on the sorts of things I like to see in stories.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I've realised that I actually like the over-simplistic approach Bickham takes. (It applies to other books too. I'm getting a lot of help from the Donald Maas Writing the Breakout Novel book and workbook.)

I'm quite happy to take the principles of what such books are trying to say and adapt them to my own purposes. If the book is already saying, "Well you could do this or you could do that," I find it all a bit woolly. There's nothing to get a grip on.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Keep us updated, will you? I love hearing about writing processes, regardless of how alien they are to me.