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Shapers of Worlds volume V cover reveal & Blowing up my novel outline

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Writing progress for January was very low, but for good reason. I spent the entire month fixing the second half of my current novel draft. Things around the holidays were good for writing because I had just passed the 50k word count and hit my mid-point turn in the story. But when I read through my notes for what was supposed to happen in the second half of the story I got worried. Where the characters were going wasn’t interesting, and worse, their motivations were nonexistent. They were just doing stuff to move the plot forward, and it was dull. After wrestling with the outline for a few days I finally asked for outside help. Sure enough, all the feedback I got was along the lines of, “Why is this character doing this action? It doesn’t make sense. Your plot is too convoluted.”


After being bummed out that I couldn’t use some of the ideas already there, I gutted the outline to the essential plot beats. Once there, I tried a few new directions for more direct actions and consequences. Something that helped quite a bit was I also made a supplementary document about several of the characters important to the second half of the story and wrote out what they wanted and the means they had at their disposal to get it. I was surprised to learn that I didn’t have a good grasp of some of these characters and this supplementary document solved a lot of problems. When I added them back into the outline they were acting in a clear manner that was consistent with their goals. It seems obvious in hindsight, but doing a “Who is this character and what do they want?” writing exercise was what I should have done at the start of my outline process. Better late than never!


It took a few rounds, but my outline for the back half of the novel is now in good shape and I’m drafting again. For word counts, in January I added 3k words for a total word count of 52k. With (hopefully) no more conceptual problems to fix I think that progress in February will be markedly better.


I’m excited to report that Shapers of Worlds volume V is finished and the epub has been sent out to Kickstarter backers. I got mine and am really happy with how everything turned out. The paperback version will be ready in a few weeks (also for Kickstarter backers), and the book will be available to everyone for purchase in late March.


To help promote the anthology, and my short story in particular, I was lucky enough to have a guest interview with Max Bowen, host of Citywide Blackout. The episode turned out great and the audio and a link to the YouTube video can be found in the Media section. The next couple months are likely to be quiet for marketing efforts as I focus on drafting.


Thanks for stopping by.

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