In part one of this little series, I talked about how I come up with ideas (specifically for an urban fantasy novel called The Ruthless Dead), and how I turn an idea into a story.
In this segment, I’ll talk about the longest part of the writing process for me (yes, even longer than writing the actual 100,000 word novel) — creating an outline.
Not Your High School English Class Outline
When I say outline, I don’t mean the kind of thing you used to have to do in high school, with a Roman number I, then a subsection i, then subsection a, etc. (or however those damn things worked). I’m really talking a synopsis that highlights major plot points in each chapter and includes pertinent character notes. I discussed outlines in this post from February, for a sequel to my YA novel The Sapphire Eye, which is currently being shopped around. I also discussed how writing detailed outlines helps get research out of the way so it’s not an impediment to writing the actual story. I won’t rehash those point here; if you’re interested you can go back and read the older posts.
I might take four to six months to write a 15,000 word outline. That’s a long time for something so short. The benefit for me is that I get all of the hard decisions about plot and character out of the way in a condensed format. It’s much easier to change things in a 20 page outline than a 400 page first draft. It takes as long as it does because I iron out pretty much every detail in advance.
Some writers hate working like that. To them, a detailed outline like this simply kills the spontaneity of the work. And that’s perfectly valid. I’ve tried writing without an outline, and it doesn’t work for me at all. Different writers have different techniques and methods. I just want to be clear that these are my methods, not methods I think everyone else should use.
What is below is the outline I’m working from for The Ruthless Dead. I haven’t changed anything from my actual work copy — this is a simple cut and paste. I want to show it to you now, because in the next part of this series, I’m going to post the entire completed first chapter and discuss (a) how the outline made writing it easier, and (b) the changes that occurred in going from outline to draft.
One final thing: there are thirty chapters in the outline (though there will be more in the final book — I’ll explain in the next part how that happens). This is about as short as each chapter bullet list will get, though there are a few chapters that are a page and a half long, not because the chapter itself will be long, but because there’s just a lot of detail I needed to work out.
THE RUTHLESS DEAD
Chapter One
- John Simmons is in Governor Frank Williamson’s Mansion in Harrisburg, PA, trying to rid it of a demon.
- He was called in by ICE (Interdimensional Containment and Enforcement) after their top guy almost got possessed by the thing.
- ICE has it contained but can’t expel it.
- John is a freelance security consultant.
- Gets lots of government contracts, has a high-level clearance.
- John gets rid of the demon with some difficulty.
- He has to speak a Word of Command in Yehennu, the Language of Creation.
- He is one of the few who knows this language, and is very careful about who knows he knows.
- Strange smell to the demon, not one he’s met before.
- He has wards tattooed on his body, wears rings that provide further protection.
- The tattoos are in clear ink so they don’t show and reveal themselves to others who would know what they are.
- The governor thanks him for his help.
- John gives the governor his card (Sunfire Defense Systems — “When you need the best security, you need SDS”), says if he’d used John’s security systems the demon would never have gotten in.
- Tony Ramos (SAC ICE) wants to know who summoned the demon.
- John doesn’t know.
- It was pretty powerful, so the list of people who could call it are small.
- He says to check the surveillance videos.
- Tony’s partner, Amanda Evanston, wonders if John called it himself so he could be the “hero” who dispatched it.
- “Your name would be on that list.”
- He tells them to have a nice day and expect his invoice in a few days.
