How To Write A Novel: Part 384

The title is a joke. ;P I'm not really going to lecture about what I think the proper way to write a novel is, lol.

But I am going to bore you with what I'm up to at the moment...

Okay, so I had an combat outline for the novel I'm working on -- I call it a Combat Outline because Michael A. Stackpole used it (coined it, for all I know) in his podcast The Secrets and it sounded so much more exciting and cool than the boring term "outline", so I'm borrowing it indefinitely -- and it was just too "thin". There wasn't enough story. One of the reasons I'm writing this a a novel is because I've created this small town in Texas (two, actually) that I really want to revisit, and I figured that if I wrote the first story as a screenplay and sold it (which is, you know, what you want to do with screenplays) the production company that bought the screenplay would own the rights to the characters/situations/locations and would, legally, have a say in whether or not I get to write the continuing adventures of my characters.

So if I write a few novels in the series first, then I have a bit more creative control over my "intellectual property". (It's a disdainful term, created by lawyers, but it's a quicker way to communicate what I mean, lol.)

But, somehow, my combat outline was thin! My story didn't really feel like a full novel!

Mr. Stackpole -- who offers podcasts that are phenomenally nuts-and-bolts in a way that no How-To book I've ever read is; check out the The Secrets Special Edition 01 - 12!!! -- says that if you hit the "What happens next?" place while writing, you don't know enough about your characters. I knew I have plenty of stories about my characters in this fictional small Texas town... So why did my story feel so small?

If I couldn't pack this novel full of story/character goodness, then I didn't really have a series, much less a novel that anyone would want to buy.

So my fix...

I imagined the series as a TV series, I imagined the pilot (the "origin story", if you will) was already written, and I tried to come up with the "TV Guide logline" description of episodes 2 - 20. If I couldn't do this, then I knew I didn't have a series of novels, and may not actually have a single novel (that's worth reading, anyway).

Thankfully, I came up with episodes 2 - 22!!! :D I had more story than I even realized! :D I EASILY have a series of novels! And even a TV series, if I ever decide to pitch it, hee-hee!

But the GREAT part is that some of the character storylines that I came up with as the basis for an episode-long exploration of the character can be whittled down into mere scenes or sequences that enrich the novel as a whole, but -- more importantly -- reveal character in a much more interesting way than merely having the characters respond to the central dilemma of the book! :D

And tonight, I get to parse my 2 lists (Story fodder and Character fodder) and see what actually fits where! :D

Editing and rewriting is always much easier than creating from scratch! Always!

So I may have stumbled onto a novel way to create from scratch: Create more than you need, then edit it down into the final story.

I mean, you're still creating from scratch, but... it some how doesn't feel like it?

I know it doesn't make logical sense, but it kind of works, in practice. Go figure.

HEY...!

I need some advise...

I've started doing that Twitter-thang, and I so don't know the lingo!

If I'm "twitter-ing", what's that called? Am I, at that point, "tweeting"? I ask because I've seen twitter-ers refer to those of us reading their post as their "tweets". But can a twitter-er tweet to his or her tweets? Or does a twitter-er, say, twit to his/her tweets? And am I twitter-ing, or am I tweeting? Or am I twitting?

I'm no new to all of this.

Help a bra' out?

:D