I for the life of me don’t know how Steven James does it. He just sits down to write a novel with almost no planning. i don’t know if he outlines or what.
He does have some good advice. I’ve seen the endless questionnaires for your protagonist, “Where did they go to school, blah”. I know that some writers like Nancy Kress do these extensive interviews with their characters, and write a ton of backstory for them.
That doesn’t work for me. Essentially, the workflow of a writer can’t be messed with.
Years ago, I was working on a project that involved listening to a lot of music daily, to properly visualize the project. I had to time out my morning walk to know “When I reach this spot, I’m halfway through.” Someone I knew wanted to come with me, so I told him what time.
He immediately wanted to change my route. “Let’s go this way.” And then he wanted to talk the whole walk. I kept explaining what he wanted to do defeated the purpose of my morning walk, and that I needed this time to work.
He didn’t see it as work. He simply couldn’t understand what I was talking about at all.
I didn’t meet him for day two. He interrupted my work flow. What interrupts your work flow is not good.
Once you get a few novels under your belt, you realize right away you’ve got a workflow that works. You pre-plan in whatever way makes sense to you. I like to do the logline, then a “save the cat” sheet, then a 21 point sheet listing the major beats, then finally a 60 point sheet. If I can get at least 50 beats in there, I’ve got a book. 38 beats? I don’t have a book.
The quality of a book is not determined by how many words it has, but rather the effectiveness of the story it tells.
To get there, I have to write the logline first. No if’s, and’s or buts.
If I can write a save the cat sheet, that’s a good start.
If I can’t get that far, I don’t have a book.
Once I write the 21 point (I’m only adding about 6 or 7 beats to the save the cat), now I start looking at my 60 point. I get my beats in order based upon story structure, and then I ask,” What happens in between? how did I get from ‘A gets the letter’ to ‘A buys a gun’?” And I’m usually looking at the outline, and it’s easy except for the fact my biggest hole in the story is in the last 3/4’s of the story. That’s great, my middles were horrible until I came up with this system.
If I start by doing all this, then spending a month worrying about how my protagonist first learned to drive….
My system would bog down.
Figure out what system works for you to write and complete a good, quality novel – something people will want to buy and read. If your system allows you to do that, great! If not… Change it. Resist the temptation to add something because John Grisham does it.
Do what works. And do what works for you.
