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I’ve reached another waypoint on No Wake Zone. I’m handling this book the same way I wrote Last Exit, building in layers. First, a basic, bare-bones outline. From there I flesh it out with key action, dialog, turning points, and reference notes, <<bracketed out like so>>. Scenes seen through Hazel’s eyes get yellow highlighter, Hammon’s, gray. Turning points are bookmarked and highlighted red, notes, pink. There’s still gaps, but the general storyline is complete, and that’s where I am now. The hull is solid, the engine runs, and the whole thing floats. Now it’s time to caulk the leaks, add the rigging and gear. Finally, I paint, polish, and tune things up. (revisions, revisions, revisions!)
Now I’m filling in the gaps, dumping anything that seems clunky or doesn’t work. Things will continue to shift as new inspirations come in, and it all starts to mesh and flow. Rather than losing momentum dwelling on areas that need additional attention, I throw in a <<fuzzyloris>> (see below for fuzzy little slender loris). Basically, it’s a nonsense word that has no place in the story, and I can easily search later on. And while I’m working on one spot, I realize what’s happening there requires something be established in an earlier or later chapter, but again, I don’t want to shift my attention, so I throw that on the Chevelle List. Towards the end of Last Exit, I realized a character needed to borrow a distinct, recognizable car, one solid enough to take a beating, but one without an airbag. A Chevelle fit the bill. But it was key to the plot that it be clear who owned the Chevelle, and that had to be established earlier in the book.
It’s a building process, a constant puzzle, and there’s numerous variations to how the pieces can fit. The challenge and fun comes from finding the best (or worst) possible route for the story to unfold.
This is a fuzzy little baby Slender Loris, with an expression matching mine after too many all-night writing sessions!
I suppose this gives me a place to vent, rather than walking around in circles, mumbling to the cats. Not that there’s much need for venting at the moment, just a general ennui, and trying to get all my muses in a row. The frustration of writing suspense, and most anything else, I imagine, is that as you’re working, everything is in your head. You, the author, know what’s around every turn and under every rock. You know the red herrings, and you know the red shirts, (the fifth crew members on Star Trek, the ones that wound up vaporized or condensed into a neat little geometric shape of minerals,) and you know who is really good/bad/out of their minds. So, as I write, I’m wondering, am I really pulling this off? Will this make sense to my readers, am I giving too much, and will they see it coming a mile away, or am I giving too little, and the pieces won’t mesh in the end. According to my kind victims, uhm, test readers, for the most part, yes, I pulled it off. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t tweaking to do, but that’s to be expected.
So now I’m doing it again. I know what’s in ‘the snow’, where, why, and how it plays out. I have everything outlined, and it is all coming together very satisfyingly. My characters are throwing me a few curve balls, which I expected, and I roll with it. Sometimes a scene isn’t working, so I back up, hit the delete key (okay, cut and paste it into a scrap file) and start over. Minor characters stepped up to bigger roles, action shifted. I try to write with a general idea of where I’m going, then figure the worst possible route to get there. What could go wrong? With my characters, that’s not too hard. How could it go even worse, and what, in turn, might that lead to? Sometimes I find myself on an entirely different path, and the outline gets overhauled. Overall, it’s a fun process, though at times it leaves me pacing and mumbling ‘I need something.’ Those around me have learned not to be alarmed by this behavior.
Presently, I’m in one of those spots. My mood tends to reflect my characters at the point of a scene. And presently, my most antisocial, snarky, difficult character is trapped in a tense, stuffy, social scene. She’s at her best alone or in life & death situations, and while it is necessary she be there, she, and consequently I, am not happy about it. So ‘we’re’ sticking it out, and by the second draft I’ll work in more humor and/or violence to satisfy us both.
Thank goodness my husband understands, when he asks how my day was, and I say “I really need to kill someone.” (That’s in two chapters!)
