The Four Steps

It is time for another blog entry! Today, I’m going to give you a quick update on the progress of my story and then jump into the four steps I’ve been using to hammer out a novel. I just finished the Chapter Outline, and tomorrow I will start the draft itself (would start it tonight, but I’m tired and there’s only a few minutes left.).

Word update, I don’t have it yet – haven’t calculated it so…yeah. Won’t get to that this week. Let’s just get right down to it.

The Four Steps

The first of the four steps is the plot sketch. It starts with a seed/germ of an idea to explore and from there it gets fleshed out via informal, very loose stream-of-conscious collection of ideas – the idea here is to keep the ideas on track and start working out a plot. It’s very loose, very informal – it’s basically you talking to myself, working out problems I encounter with the story. This is basically the titular drawing board. Some ideas may need a lot of work and you may find yourself working on multiple versions of these. 

It’s also important, though, to keep it simple. The first story I attempted (which led directly to this method) imploded under its own weight. You just hammering away at the drawing board, until you have the plot worked out all the way to the end. 

Next up is the plot summary. It’s pretty straightforward and it’s built directly on what you did with the plot sketch. It’s pretty much a formal version of the plot you worked out in your plot sketch, with all of your ramblings trying to work out the plot problems straightened out. Tweak your plot, change stuff around and get all that in order. Print out a copy, you’ll want it for what comes next. 

After that, it’s the Chapter Outline (which is what I just finished). There are two steps to this. Take your plot summary, get a pen and then start dividing it, trying to figure out where your chapter breaks are. Once you’ve done that, it’s back to the computer. Using your plot summary as a guide, start doing composing a list of things that need to accomplished in each chapter – include stuff like descriptions, narrative shifts and so forth and so on. I personally put a little one-sentence summary of the chapter, followed by a list of things that need to be in there – not everything as a rule (because I think I’m smart enough to connect the dots a few at a time). Also, use Page Breaks. Each chapter should start on a new page.

Then print that out and it’s time to actually write the draft of the story. This I haven’t done yet – I’ll start on that tomorrow. But with your Chapter Outline as a guide, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Just stay on the list of things to accomplish, check them off as you go and before long that should result in a finished draft, provided you stick to it. I will keep the blog updated with how the writing is coming along. 

That’s about it. That’s the four steps. This was a really short entry, so that’s all. Take care and thanks for reading.