The Synopsis
In last week's newsletter, I responded to questions about writing a trilogy. Some of my readers asked about my writing process itself, so I'll begin to address that here.
I have a long career in journalism, so the act of putting derrière to chair isn't daunting. The way I set out is to organize all my research notes and then write a synopsis of the novel, perhaps two or three pages. This is the most daunting part for me. I have to remove myself from pruning the trees and view the forest as a whole. Do I have a strong enough narrative arc? Who are the main characters? Where is the action that will grab a reader? How to I make the story emotionally compelling?
When I'm in this mode, I'm not fun to be around. My mind constantly wanders back to the story. I imagine myself in that time and place. I think about my characters... a lot. I'm distracted. This can take a month or more. I do note that my wife tends to run lots of errands and meets with her friends for brunches and lengthy lunches during these times.
Once I have the summary, I draft detailed descriptions of my characters. What do they look like? How do they carry themselves? Do they have physical characteristics that make them unique? I keep at this until they are fully fleshed out in my mind, flaws and all. In an upcoming newsletter I'll expand with details on how this fleshing out happens.
The Next Steps
Once I've done a few drafts of the synopsis and characters, I enter new territory. I begin to parse the story into discreet chapters. This is painful. It might take me months to get this right, but I'm no longer using precious brain wiring to figure it out. This is more of a term paper task; organizing, moving sections around, sequencing, filling in narrative gaps. Kinda fun in a way.
The narrative typically diverges from the initial outline, as I get to know my characters better and plot twists emerge. I usually end up adding chapters that help drive the story, but once I have my outline set, I find the actual writing goes pretty smoothly. And that’s where I’ll pick up next week.