Well, the first draft outline for Outcast Ops: Red Ice is done and sent to Rick Chesler for his look over. I have no doubt that there will be changes made, as it is a first draft, but I think the basic story will work.
I learn a lot about writing African Firestorm, and one of the things I learned was writing the outline.. I overdid the African Firestorm outline --- I outlined it as 53 chapters and 14,500 words. I wrote extremely detailed chapters, to the point of breaking the action scenes down step by step. But when I wrote the novel, I found the plot was too complex and detailed for the novel I was writing, So, I did some cutting on the fly, and ended up with a 45-chapter novel with a prologue and epilogue. The first two-thirds of African Firestorm stays very close to the outline as I wrote it, but the last third was a major rewrite.
With Red Ice, I went with a less detailed outline. It comes in at 45 chapters, with a prologue., and weighs in at just 7,800 words. The plot is more streamlined then the original outline for African Firestorm was. I have one set of bad guys, a few good guys, and one US city. I also went with less detail in the outline, leaving that to the actual writing.
I use the term "Outline" when I describe the plotting part of the book. Actually, it's a summary of the plot, broken down into chapters. Who, where, when, what happened, a cliffhanger if possible, then onto the next chapter. The fights are described in general terms, and individual actions are noted where needed.
I figure it's going to take Rick a few days to look over the outline and we'll discuss what works and what doesn't work. I expect there'll be changes. Unless there are serious problems, I expect to start writing the actual first draft before the end of the month. I will be keeping anyone reading this blog up to date on my progress.
Until later!
Craig
No comments:
Post a Comment