For the last year, I’ve been struggling to write this novel (Children of the Starry Sea, Book 2 of the Outworld Trilogy) according to my new novel writing method, which I’ve been developing since about 2017. The method involves creating a rigorous scene-by-scene outline and cycling through each scene multiple times, so that you basically revise the book as you go.
However, for a novel WIP the size of Children that doesn’t seem to work very well: either my mind is stuck in the revisions, or I’m so focused on producing new words that I don’t get around to revising, or (as happens most often) I’m so torn between both that I can never get in the right headspace, and my productivity suffers.
One of the things that happens is that I get hung up on a scene that I don’t really want to write. There are other parts of the story that appeal to me, but in order to get to them, I have to write that scene first… IF I’m writing the whole book in order from start to finish. So because I don’t want to write the next scene, I end up working on revisions for a while, which makes it harder to get back into the right headspace to write new stuff… you get the picture.
But the thing is, because I have such a rigorous scene-by-scene outline, I don’t actually need to write all the scenes in order. So lately, I’ve been picking and choosing which scene to write next, experimenting with writing the book out of order.
So far, it’s worked out pretty well. The outline gives me all of the plot points and character arcs that need to be worked out, so I can treat each scene as a sort of mini-story, which helps to eat the proverbial elephant. (How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.) Also, my ADHD-addled brain really loves the creative freedom of being able to pick and choose what to work on next, ignoring whether it has anything to do with what I wrote yesterday.
Of course, this means that the revisions will have to wait until all the holes in the narrative have been filled. I may be able to do it on a chapter-by-chapter basis, with the first revision happening once all the scenes in a chapter are done, and the next revision focused on fitting the chapters together, but I don’t know. It may just be better to put off the revisions altogether until the entire rough draft is complete.
Then again, there are advantages to cycling through the manuscript during the drafting process. It can help to identify plot and story problems as they emerge, which can help to remove writing blocks before they become really onerous. Also, it leaves me with a lot less work to get to the final version, once the initial manuscript is complete.
So here’s how I think I’m going to do it:
- Prewriting: Develop a rigorous outline that includes a scene-by-scene map with all important plot points and character/relationship arcs.
- Rough Draft: Pick and choose which scenes to write, focusing on hitting the plot/character/relationship points and making each scene cohesive.
- First Revision: Fix all the points in the revision notes (such as things that need to be foreshadowed) and focus on making each chapter cohesive.
- Second Revision: Fix any remaining revision notes and focus on overall story and chapter flow.
- Final Revision: Focus on the sentence and paragraph level writing to cut the book’s word count by at least 10%.
So maybe I’ll do the first revision in-line with the rough draft, as each chapter comes together. Unless the book has major problems, the second revision should be pretty straightforward and not take longer than a week or two—besides, it should probably wait until the first draft is totally done, since that’s the time to work on overall story flow. And the final revision can go in-line with that.
I don’t know if any of that makes any sense to anyone but me. Thinking out loud does help to put my thoughts together, though I’m not sure how much it makes for good internet content. Still, I’m curious if anyone has any thoughts on the subject. Have you tried out something similar? Or does the very thought of writing like this feel like scraping nails on a chalkboard? Let me know! I’m curious to hear your take on it.
