Write a book, darn you! Outlines and plotting in your pants.

My job in the real world is 'facility attendant' as a seniors' activity centre. There's karaoke, there's bridge, there's tai chi, table tennis, and on, and on. But covid's got stuff such down. Which leads to bored/isolated seniors. The activity co-ordinator has taken it upon herself to do these newsletters to help. She asked if I could throw something in, and knowing I write, she asked if I could put together a bit about writing for bored seniors. I whipped something out. I've done talks on it, and contributed to books about it, but I figured others might get some use out of what I wrote for the newsletter... Here we go!

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I used to write little short stories for fun, but the idea of writing a full book seemed like an insurmountable feat I would never dare to challenge. But one day, I ended up with a short story I liked enough to write 2 sequels and a prequel for. The sum of them formed the blocks to my first novel. As much as I still like that book, through my own fiddling, and talking with other writers, I've come up with a bit of a system to make it easier.

I was taught about outlines in school, but it always seemed like such a tedious waste of time. It can feel like that when your assignment is half a page, but if your goal is a hundred or more pages, it gets a lot more useful. There's writers who are 'plotters' who plan everything in detail before they get into 'actual' writing, and there's 'pansters', who fly by the seat of their pants. That describes my first book, I suppose, but now I'm somewhere in between a plotter and pantser.

Once I have my basic idea, I separate it into single line plot points- just to keep me on track. I'll use a cliche for an example-

-Dragon steals princess from castle
-King puts out a notice for a hero
-Bob sees the notice, and talks to king, gets directions
-Bob goes to fight dragon, wins, yay.

Each one of those lines could be described for pages and pages, possibly a meaty chapter.

Line one might turn into describing the town, the castle, the princess going about her daily routine, an omen as the skies turn dark, and a screech is heard. You can go onto as much detail as you feel like, and stretch thigs out. Of course, there's a risk of dragging things out too long, so making sure what you're describing remains interesting enough to support the length can be a tricky balance. This is an instance where brutally honest feedback comes in handy.

The most important thing to remember is that your outline is not a prison. Maybe you get a new idea as you're writing chapter 2, and decide Bob loses to the dragon, and ends up having to go questing for some magic weapon, or the directions were useless, or the king was in on it, getting the princess kidnapped for insurance money. Maybe it wasn't a dragon, maybe it was 5 trained apes in a dragon suit. You can easily end up with something that bears only the slightest resemblance to the original outline.

Honestly, one of the main purposes of an outline is to set markers to make the entire process of writing a book seem like less like one huge task, and more like manageable bites.

Once you've come to an ending, read it. Over and over. Being able to see your own flaws is a trained skill. When you already know what something is SUPPOSED to say, you subconsciously 'auto-correct' typos, plot holes, and awkward parts that aren't explained well. Self-editing can only go so far. When I think I have a book perfected, that's when I hand it to people I know who will be BRUTAL in finding errors, and honest, not sparing my feelings. Nothing is ever complete- I've had pro editors take a swing, and typos still get out. They say the best way to find an error is to publish, but it's up to the author and/or publisher to weed out as many as possible. Even 'the big guys' have this issue. There comes a point when you have to say 'good enough'.

But once it IS good enough? Then publishing is the next step. It can be as humble as having a single copy made for yourself, as ambitious as getting an agent and chasing the big traditional publishers, and anywhere in between. But that's a whole other topic...

Small authors are stalking you.

The thing about being a nobody writer is that in slow times, the KIndle unlimited reports occasionally imply the reading path of a single reader. It's a bit creepy in a way, but fascinating. If I am to draw the simplest conclusions based on how many pages have been read of which book, it would appear that someone in the states had a slow start to my first book,, Lifehack, but picked up speed, dong the bulk of it yesterday and the day before, them moving right on to my 2nd book, Watching Yute. Yute has A very different tone, but it has not slowed them down. (Again, I'm drawing conclusions COULD be 1000 readers each reading one page, then moving on, or 250 people reading 4 pages, etc, etc, but I think my initial conclusions are pretty likely.) I worry that Yute's vastly different (and depressing!) low-action tone would turn off people who just finished blowing up 2 cities worth of zombies, but, my new reader seems to be into it. There is an urge to lean over their shoulder and see where they are exactly, and gush. "Ooh, see that part? She was implying... oh, you got that? Good. Ooh, this next part is good, READ IT REALLY HARD! I'll hold your hand if you need support." A small writer very much appreciates support, (and good lord, a review?? That can make a month!) but the little ones are watching from the corner when you wander into their shop. They dearly hope you enjoy whatever little candy you pick up, and would treasure feedback if it was a little too sweet? Oh, you would have liked a stronger hint of raspberry? The gooey centre could have been bigger? Would that have been too overt? I don't want to diminish it by putting in too much, but Ohh yes, the middle can be... SO GOOD. Did you rush in for it? Did you savour the outer layers? They were there for your pleasure, to complete the experience.

Rubberman's Exodus is at 30%... and what's with my series' consistency?

I've been fortunate enough that the majority of reviews for my books (as few as they have been compared to many books) have been positive. By one means or another, (and/or an updated cover) my first book remains my most popular.

Among the handful of reviews that are not-so-positive, pops up a notion now and then that "It started out good, and then..."

Yeah, I get that, I can see why that can happen. Lifehack was born from a set of four not-so-short stories. In the first one, our hero is mostly alone, doing a typical survival v zombies thing.

After the first quarter of the book, (passing from story 1 to story 2) she is basically rescued, much less alone, no longer living in that oppressive claustrophobic threat that seems to be a mainstay of typical zombie fare.

Around here, there's a bit of a shift into ROMCOM territory. And people looking for a ZOMBIE BOOK... are prone to get turned off. The other side of the coin is that people not really into general zombie stuff have really enjoyed it.

I warn people as such... "If you're a big zombie book fan, this isn't it." I don't dwell on gore nearly as much. It's there, it impacts our hero, but I don't feel the need to run the readers' faces in it.

The tonal shift from the first quarter to the rest of the book comes down to the book not being grounded in one consistent theme in some ways. First-book-itis, maybe.

This inconsistent tone is also reflected in the Lifehack series as a whole. The following book, Watching Yute, is drastically different. There are some zombies in it, but they barely muster a side-story, with the nanotech aspect being the bigger threat.... and in much more subtle/tangential ways. The book is also a huge downer, on purpose. I love it, it wrecks me. But it's a HARD turn from the hijinks of LIfehck

Then the series caps off with Echeos of Erebus. The hijinks get ramped back up a bit, the depressing bits get toned down, and we end up with a sort of balance of action/drama between former 2 books, Then glaze it with extra nanites.


As a series, my first 3 books weren't planned very well. I still like the books, and the world they formed, but it didn't help foster a readership that could justifiably be off-put by the drastically shifting tone from one book to the next.

AS SUCH- the Rubberman series was planned and laid out from the start with a skeletal framework that could host several stories that felt more consistently .... related to each other. As I write book 3 of Rubberman, (Rubberman's Exodus) there is going to be a dramatic shift- but it was planned all along. I've just passed what will probably be the 1/3 mark in the book, and I'm writing the beginning of that shift.

10 years down the road, will I be seeing reviews saying "Huh, Exodus started OK, but..."? Well, too bad. Can't please everyone. And there HAS to be some shifts in tone. Consistency for consistency's sake would be dull. Rubberman's Citizens is a little bit of an outlier from the bulk of the series, with a handful more action, and taking place mainly in one section of the series' 'geography'.

There's a balance to be had. Will the balance I settle on please everyone?

Absolutely not.

Will my next series have a balance that pleases everyone?

 Absolutely not.

Am I going to let that keep me up at night?

Guess.

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