Installment #4: Averting Disaster.

Writing ByTrying My Hand At Writing A Novel

Feb 1

This week my friend David H. Steinberg posted a Twitter thread about how to write a quick first draft of a screenplay. He said, if your story isn’t working, the problem is in your outline. I don’t know if that’s always true, but in this case, David was absolutely right.

As I was mapping out the full story for my novel, I realized that my big problem had to do with the rules of the world I had set up. Just when I felt like the outline was moving along at a good clip, I’d come to a screeching halt every time any of the paranormal parts came up. Delving deeper, I figured out that the rules I had set up were way too restrictive and didn’t give my main character or her partner any wiggle room in how they could investigate the case.

Rather than try to force things, I decided to “go up the mountain” on a slightly modified version of the core idea to see if it still played out in the way I’d hoped.

Basically, what I did was adjust the hook of the idea.

Once I decided to make this change, I knew I had to run each story point through this new filter. I’m having to find new clues to the mystery to see if they work better than before. I’m losing nothing by playing out this new scenario. I still have my old outline and can go back to it anytime I want. As of right this moment, it’s working, and I think it’s given me a fresher take on the original concept.

What am I doing now? I’m “sitting on the floor to pull it apart” which, as you may know, is my way of going back to the drawing board. Is it a lot of work? You bet. But I’d rather do that work in the prep phase than get 60,000 words in and have to start all over.

We’ll see if it all comes together in the end. Hopefully, by the end of the week, I’ll know if it does or not. Fingers crossed.