Tag: My Fiction

Curses!  Foiled Again!

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Ah, the whiplash sting of rejection.  My manuscript has been rejected by Ark Press (see bold text below).

 

Thank you for submitting to Ark Press.

The Ark editorial team has reviewed your work and given it careful consideration. We appreciate the opportunity to review your treatment and manuscript, however, The Sniper isn’t right for us.

We would, however, love to see another project from you. The writing was quite good and the story kept us engaged. Please do keep us in mind in the future

Best of luck with your writing,

 

If I were a drinking man I’d probably go on a two-week bender and drown my sorrow in 180 proof rum.  But the show must go on!  I will gather up the jagged shards of my dreams and limp off stage to nurse my wounded pride and super-glue my shattered dreams of literary glory back together somehow.

I told Camera Girl of this crushing defeat.  She told me to suck it up and stop whining.  Not the sympathetic shoulder I was hoping for.  In another age maybe I would have run off and joined the French Foreign Legion but I don’t think they allow enough free time for macrophotography and right-wing punditry in the Legion.  Vive la France!

Well, it wasn’t all bad.  They did say the writing was pretty good.  I mean, maybe they were just saying that to soften the blow but I’ll take a positive spin on that and continue to work on finishing the book and then either get it published or self-publish it on Amazon.

Honestly, I was very glad that they got back to me.  And I liked the polite and professional remarks they sent.  I think a lot of publishers don’t even bother to send rejection letters anymore.  So, an honest rejection is actually kind of comforting.  But still, there is a disappointment when you don’t win the prize.  But we know that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  At least that’s what that crazy atheist said back a hundred and some odd years ago.  And he should know because he went crazy and died!

So, the show must go on and all sadness and chagrin must be pushed aside and efforts must be redoubled.  I intend to memorize a hundred new adjectives every week, take up MMA fighting and try my luck at swordfishing to increase my relatability with the reading audience.  After all Hemingway did some of that stuff and he was very relatable.  I wonder how good Camera Girl is at MMA fighting?  She’s pretty strong and agile so maybe she would be a good sparring partner.  But she is kinda mean and I can’t afford to be injured too badly before I get into the octagon with my real opponents.  Maybe she’ll agree to fighting me blindfolded and with one arm tied behind her back.  That seems reasonable.  But just to be sure, maybe I’ll also tie her ankles together.  Yeah, that would be good.  I could definitely take her then.  Alright, I love it when a plan comes together.

Learning from a Harsh Mistress

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Today was a good day on the novel.  I figured out a plot device to externalize the main character’s decision making.  I’m going to have one or more conversations between him and the AI.  Now this may sound like a faddish decision because of all the AI-associated jibber jabber we hear about lately.  But actually, I can think of a very famous usage of AI friendship in classic science fiction.

In Robert Heinlein’s novel, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” the human protagonist is friend to and conspiracy partner with a self-aware computer named Mike.  The conversations between them are a good chunk of the story and critical to the plot at many points.  Now I don’t need anything that extensive for my plot device but I need a sounding board for my character’s decision making.  I can turn a soliloquy into a dialog and that works better for the dramatic aspect of it.  And since the AI is “female” it provides a different emotional feeling to the talk.  It’s funny, I had added a scene where the protagonist is mediating an armed standoff between two military groups and without realizing it, I had decided that he would follow up by surrendering himself to the US government.  But once I did that, I realized that I had not foreshadowed this move anywhere in the story and no one would have expected it.

So, I decided I needed to build up some of his thought process in advance for the readers to see.  What I’m still working on is the reaction to his “capture.”  I’m thinking about something like a general strike with the Teamsters and other truck drivers shutting down the supply chains for everything and the country grinding to a halt.  I haven’t thought all of that out yet.  I need to up the ante and bring the book to an end on a high note but so far it doesn’t have enough drama and excitement.

Maybe I’ll introduce an external threat to provide a reason for unifying the splintered Americans.  Or maybe I’ll have the protagonist provide a stirring speech to the nation that will galvanize a movement to strip the federal government of its oppressive powers and reassert the freedoms in the Bill of Rights in all of their aspects.

And I have to do all of this without it seeming too much like a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment.  And that means I’ll actually have to figure out what practical changes would be made to the current state of the federal government.  Some of the things are easy.  I’ll abolish the FBI.  I’ll cancel the Patriot Act and the FISA Courts.  The CIA will have to be reformed so that it can’t touch American citizens at all.  I’m tempted to eliminate the IRS.  In many ways the second Trump administration seems to be stealing a lot of my thunder.  Maybe I should strike back by eliminating the Education department and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  No, I’ll be big about it and stay in my lane.

So today was a good day.

Ain’t It a Grind

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Okay, enough about Trump and Musk and DOGE.  Sure, they’re saving me trillions but leave me alone about it will you?  Just send me my share of the loot when you break it loose.

And enough already about Ukraine.  Everybody knows by now they should just stop the killing each other and get back to being cold all the time like they’re supposed to be.  So, until they wake up to this reality, I’ll let Trump shut off the money and the whole stupid merry-go-round will slow down and stop.

And about the government shutdown.  Just shut up.  We’re all tired of that game.

So, what do I want to write about?  Well, I want to write about writing.  My writing.  I handed my story treatment over to Ark Press but that was a cry for validation.  I wanted to find out from an expert if it’s good stuff.  But unfortunately, the story isn’t finished.  So regardless if it’s deathless prose, I’ve only got 55,000 words and I need to finish a number of plot lines and story elements.  I think I have a major character to kill and I may even remove a chapter that moves things into a more difficult direction.  And, horror of horrors I may actually try to entangle two of the characters in a romantic relationship.

The main problem is how I end my war.  The action is frozen in a bit of a stalemate as both sides attempt to figure out a path forward.  The US government is a mess after the attack on Washington decapitated the federal government by destroying the White House, Capitol, Pentagon, Department of Justice and the intelligence agencies.  They’ve cobbled together an administration but after the late president’s nuclear attack on Connors’ organization and the country’s reaction there is fear that another ham-fisted military action might start a real civil war.

Connors’ organization is reeling from the shock and anger over the deaths of thousands of their friends and neighbors.  And the realities of trying to guard against the government’s next move and restoring the lives of his communities to some semblance of normalcy is not going smoothly.

So, I need a way to resolve both of these situations in a dramatically satisfying action.  I’m thinking of having my protagonist, Bogey (the sniper) put on trial and using that as the device to sway public opinion into some kind of reformation of the United States.

I also need a plot device that clarifies the back story for my computer genius Cutter and his AI stepdaughter Mel.  I think I have to tie Cutter and Chastain together with some deep dark history.  Maybe even something that neither of them is aware of but Mel digs up.  And I think to work out the story right I need to kill Cutter off.  But how?  Is there a rogue element left over from the CIA or Army intelligence who hunts him down and kills him?  Maybe.

And then there’s the love story.  Bogey’s son’s widow has four kids who need a father and Connors is a lonely nerd who also happens to be a billionaire friend of Bogey’s.  I’ve already added a few sparks between them but how to progress it along?  Obviously, the woman will have to move things along.  This will be something new for me in storytelling.

And last but not least, I have to find a satisfying ending that still leaves room for the next book.   I like the idea of having a world where scientific innovation has been established and I can push off in various directions.

So, as you can see the book is far from finished.  But I’m such a lazy man that between work, chores, the daily website stuff and writing the novel I’m overloaded.  Oh well.  Such is life.  Grumble, grumble.

It Grows on You

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I think I want to talk about science fiction some more.  I don’t remember the first time I heard the expression “literary science fiction?  But I think it was being used to compare to space opera.  Now I’m not well versed in the history and evolution of science fiction past the 1970s.  Halfway through that decade I became deeply interested in making a living so I didn’t have the leisure to read all of the books coming out.  But what I could tell was some of it didn’t seem to be science fiction.  I can remember reading a couple of Samuel R Delaney books and thinking, “This guy has problems that I’m not interested in.”  And so, I decided that literary science fiction was not for me.

It seemed to me that there should be a middle ground between space opera and Samuel R Delaney.  Without a doubt some of the writers from the olden times like Asimov completely eschewed producing characters that sounded and acted like real live human beings.  Now granted, we don’t expect to get James Joyce when we pick up a book with a cover illustrated with a half-naked woman in the clutches of a giant lobster.  But by the same token once you’ve grown up and have some understanding of what people say and do in real life it would seem to me that an author who wants to make his story interesting would make his people act and speak like … people!

So, if you go back and read, for instance, Jack Williamson’s “The Legion of Space” as an adult you may be amazed at how threadbare the writing seems.  The characters are for the most part caricatures of the chivalrous hero battling monsters (literally) to save the damsel in distress.  And this is too far in the other direction from literary s-f.  Space ships, evil giant intelligent amoebas and space-time tearing secret weapons are great stuff but unless the characters have at least some similarities to actual human beings it’s kind of hard to get the readers to want to finish the story.

And there is a pretty wide bandwidth between these extremes.  Writers like Asimov and Clarke didn’t spend much time on characterization.  Hari Seldon and Dave Bowman were thumbnail sketches that barely provided enough description to convince the reader they existed.  But these were plot driven stories and as long as their authors would give us anything at all to allow us to pretend that they were people, we could suspend disbelief.

And Heinlein was able to write dozens of stories that were populated with various flavors and ages of his “competent man” whom I guess we were supposed to imagine were stand-ins for Heinlein himself.  And there was some humanity on display there.  Definitely not James Joyce but voices that were reminiscent of real people (at least somewhat).

And over the decades, characterization, especially in the hands of female authors (authoresses?) has become the dominant ingredient in literary science fiction.  And now it has reached the point where leaving out the science is completely acceptable.  Wonder has been replaced by social justice and grievance reckoning.  That’s how you end up with something like “The Handmaid’s Tale” as the exemplar of successful science fiction.

Well, all of this is very interesting.  But there’s nothing like actually trying to write a full-length novel to show someone just how much work it is to balance along that tightrope between too much and too little characterization.  And the hardest trick (for me) is getting dialog between a man and a woman to work.  I really only have my discussions with Camera Girl as my template.  But we’ve known each other for fifty years so it’s almost a pantomime at this point.  One- or two-word sentence fragments, facial expressions and gestures gets a lot done at this point.  This doesn’t translate into character dialog.  Nor would I want my protagonist to sound like me.  I’m anti-heroic.  I’m more like comic relief.

But it has given me greater respect for good writing, even in other genres.  And I think I’m getting a taste for it.  It grows on you.

Well, Another Time

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What is it that science fiction readers (and writers) like about the genre?  Is it that we escape the bounds of the familiar?  Does it somehow excite us more if the villain shoots a laser, or a blaster at the hero instead of a 9mm?  If the hero is driving an FTL (faster than light) cruiser instead of a BMW does that add to the interest in what he thinks to himself?  If an android or a robot murders a politician instead of an antifa terrorist, does it make the killing more psychologically significant?

Maybe it’s the sense that we can get at the heart of things if we aren’t trapped in the ordinariness of the here and now.  If the bad guys have capture not just a subway train but the whole Milky Way galaxy maybe we feel like we are dealing more with absolutes.  Stark choices cry out for decisions.  In the face of real evil, we will have clarity.

Or maybe it’s just the desire for freedom.  Advanced technology provides the writer with mechanisms that simplify and clean up the story line.  If the writer has painted himself into a corner in his narrative there’s no need to re-write the problem.  Just pull out a heaping helping of unobtanium and leap over the obstacle with perfect ease.

Of course that can lead to some cheesy results.  Probably 90+% of time travel stories fall into this category.  By the end of the story the protagonist is busy murdering a dozen temporal versions of himself on his way to reclaim his life in the here and now.  Heinlein did his “All You Zombies” short story all those years back but I’ve never gotten on board with all that jazz.

Maybe the thing I like about it as a storyteller is the way it allows you to build the story outward.  You can start with a future world that has interplanetary travel and terra-forming and then at some critical juncture an alien race possessing FTL capability can show up and upend this whole fictional world.  Or maybe it’s a species that just floats through space at galactic rotational speed but can live indefinitely in vacuum and when it reaches a new solar system it infects these new worlds and eradicates all other forms of life and then moves on to spread to the next system.  Or maybe a small black hole is drifting into the solar system and will destroy the Earth and Sun unless some new force can be brought to bear against this irresistible force of nature.  Or, or, or…

Of course, the danger is in pulling too many rabbits out of your hat.  You can’t have small black holes, cosmic plagues and FTL aliens showing up all in the same week.  At least not respectably.  The days of the cliff hanger are long past their prime and unless you’re serializing your book by the chapter, surprise technology needs to be believable and can’t be hauled on stage just in the nick of time.

The reason for this topic is that I was just considering the other day a subplot where the underground technology that my protagonist possesses could accidentally discover a space ship that was buried deep beneath the surface of the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago.  It would allow me to add new facets to the story but I’m afraid it will complicate and confuse the story too much.  I think I will leave that for a later story in the same world.  But I have to confess it’s fun to toy with what can be done with that kind of addition.  It would be amazing.

Well, another time.

Fingers Crossed

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I’ve been following a minor drama going on between some science fiction authors about a new publisher called Ark Press.  Most of the controversy centers around whether this new publisher is being funded by billionaire Peter Thiel and whether he originally was trying to buy another publisher Baen Books.  Baen is almost the only science fiction publisher that isn’t horribly woke.  So, from my point of view, both Baen and Ark are both the best fit for publishers I would submit my Sniper novel to.  And that’s not to say I think either one would be a slam dunk to buy my book.  But I think they are the only traditional publishing choices that are even possible.

Eventually I found a YouTube video where the main editor of Ark Press (D.J. Butler) answers a bunch of questions about Ark Press and some misinformation about the relationship between Ark and Baen.

It’s quite long and probably not that interesting to anyone who’s not writing a non-woke science fiction novel.  But I was very excited to find out there are two possible publishers I can offer my book to.

But the more generally interesting thing about Ark Press is that someone like Thiel who is a pretty heavy hitter, is getting involved in publishing conservative science fiction books.  This is exactly what I’ve been bloviating about for ten years.  This is what Andrew Breitbart was talking about way back.  Culture is upstream of politics and we are completely shut out of the culture because the institutions (book publishers, record companies, movie studios) are 99% controlled by the Left.  Literally 99%.

Hearing that someone with extremely deep pockets is dipping his toes in genre publishing is miraculous.    It’s as if all the howling I’ve done in the wilderness wasn’t in vain.  And then there is the synergism.  Peter Thiel was the guy who turned JD Vance onto the Trump train.  And he’s an old friend of Elon Musk.  The two of them were start-up partners on PayPal.  If Thiel were to persuade Musk that some of his books were very popular with young adults maybe as a lark Musk might buy some broken down movie studio like Paramount or Warner Brothers for a song and strip it down like he did Twitter and make some movies that people actually want to see.  Just imagine.

As you can probably tell I’m pretty excited about all this stuff.  Of course, it will probably lead nowhere if the people running Ark and Baen can’t recognize the obvious genius displayed in my Sniper story.  But right now, it’s fun thinking about it both from a personal angle and from the larger considerations of the wider culture.  I mean, come on!  Every boy in America used to be a science fiction/fantasy fan.  Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, Marvel, DC, you name it.  It took Disney and the girl bosses they hired a whole generation to kill that excitement with the awful female-centric drivel that currently passes for science fiction/fantasy.  It’s as obvious as daylight that if publishers and movie studios produced what boys used to pay to read and watch, boys would pay to read and watch it again.

So here we are.  At the dawn of a new golden age of science fiction publishing.  It can’t be a coincidence that it is happening just as Donald Trump has declared the beginning of the American “Golden Age.”  Well, I haven’t been using any booze or drugs so maybe there is a reasonable chance that some of this may resemble reality.  If not, it was fun thinking about.  Fingers crossed.

New Year’s Resolutions – 2025

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At this dawning of the rolling year, it is more than normally desirable that we make some slight provision for improving our behavior.  Some people try to lose weight or stop smoking.  Others look for a better job or start a hobby.  I’ve vowed to finish my book.  And to accommodate that effort I will be clearing the mornings for writing and editing the book.  This may impact my posting schedule (from time to time) but I think it’s necessary.  Time slips by too quickly if there are too many competing priorities.

Now I don’t intend to abandon the website.  OCF will have its daily photo and quote.  And whenever something needs my approbation, scorn or explanation I will promptly respond.  And I will link to anything that I think interesting or thought-provoking.  But when there’s a slow news week and I’ve already gassed off about the usual suspects I may just take a pass.  On days like that maybe I’ll link to a song I like or a clip from a movie that makes me smile.

And from time to time, I’ll put up a chunk of my story to get feedback from the readers here.  And I’ll write about writing sometimes!

So, none of this is dire.  With Trump entering the White House in a couple of weeks I’m sure I’ll have all kinds of stimuli for posts that will make it impossible to do my fiction writing work.  After all, the world is drifting into troubled times and that is sure to goad me into taking to my little soap box and barking out condemnations and propounding simple-minded plans of action.

But I do see that I’ll have to prioritize writing if I ever hope to finish that darn book.  I do think there is some writing in me.  And I won’t know how hard or easy selling books is until I give it a good old American try.

As for the news today, we’ve all been watching the attack in New Orleans and then listened to Biden try to string a few dozen sentences together without sounding like Max Headroom (and failing).  I love how he tells us the guy is a follower of ISIS but not to jump to conclusions.  So, because he’s a Moslem whose parents came from the Middle East and he’s declared jihad on America we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that he’s an Islamic terrorist?  Would that be insensitive to the various followers of the religion of peace?  Well, never mind.  Biden is so laughably irrelevant that he might as well have started to read from a Dr. Seuss book as the words of that speech his handlers handed him.  More interesting would have been a statement from Trump advising the federal law enforcement agents not to destroy any of the evidence before his team has a chance to see what really went on.  Well, this is a small part of what I expect at the border for the foreseeable future.  So, it barely merits comment.  Let’s pray nothing bigger is in the wings.

 

And just to show that my heart is in the right place, I’ll put together a few things that might lighten your day.

 

 

Stop the World and Let Me Off

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Okay, it’s enough.  I’ve watched my last screaming progressive video.  It’s not fun anymore.  And I’m good with the Trump cabinet picks and his agenda.  Honestly, that’s his problem.  He’s responsible for avoiding weasels and psychopaths.  That’s what we hired him to do.  Every once in a while it will be interesting to note how that’s all going.

I will admit I’m watching very intently the madness in Ukraine.  Apparently, the neo-cons running the war have decided to start WW III before they are physically dragged out of office.  And, I assume this is also the case for the Pentagon.  So, I can’t say I’m done with Ukraine because it’s not done with us yet.  But I restrict my attention to a few daily checks on some YouTube channels that cover the war.  So, until the mushroom clouds blossom over Dunwich I’ll take a watch and wait approach.  Which is about as much as I can logically hope to do.

So, what does that leave for me?  Well, as I’ve been reminded, I’m supposed to finish up that book.  And, lo and behold, I have been doing some work.  I put together a list of changes and additions to round it up and I’m rereading it to find any weaknesses or mistakes in the story.  And I’ve recognized a few.  Connors’ role in Iraq needs to be clarified and justified.  After all mega-billionaires aren’t usually strolling around forward operating bases of a war zone as if it were Silicon Valley.

And I have to inject more personality into my main characters.  This means I have to invent scenarios where they interact beyond strategizing how to pick off evil intelligence officers and their goons.  And, heaven help me, I might even have a relationship break out between Connors and Grace.  It would tie up some loose ends and add to the emotional interest in the story.  And so, I’m looking at those things.  But what I’ve noticed is that when you start a story by the braille method (that is, without a somewhat detailed outline) it’s hard to tack an outline onto it once it’s gotten beyond a certain point.  It’s like an off-the-rack suit that doesn’t quite fit in a bunch of places.  Trying to make it fit requires a lot of alterations.  And some of these alterations feel awkward or rub the author the wrong way because they seem antithetical to the way you originally saw a character or an event.  It’s a very uncomfortable activity.

What it’s made me aware of is that starting a story with a good road map ahead of time is an invaluable asset to finishing the story.  So, the lazy lout in me says, “Well, put this story aside and start another one from scratch with a good outline.  But I know myself too well.  That’s terrible advice.  What needs to be done is to bite the bullet and put in the work and wrestle with the problems until they’re resolved in a creatively satisfying way.  So that’s what I’m going to try to do.

What it will require me to do is put a few hours in every morning to get it done.  And that’s few hours every morning that won’t be devoted to reading the news and political stuff.  Well, I guess the world will survive with me at half strength.  You folks may notice a certain slackness on the site but I guess it can’t be helped.

Anyway, let’s give it a try.

All That Jazz

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So, it turns out I should be a plotter.  Looking at my story from the point of view of character arcs it became obvious that I haven’t even decided on several characters’ outcomes that are pivotal to a satisfying resolution to the plot.  Put succinctly, somebody’s got to die.  And maybe that’s part of the reason why I haven’t moved those character arcs along.  I’ve grown fond of all my main characters and deciding which of them has to die and then writing that outcome is disturbing.  But I do see it has to be done and I’ve begun working out the scenario.

So now I understand why just drifting along on plot can be very problematic for anything more complicated than a short story.  If you have six or eight main characters and another dozen secondary characters, not mapping out what ends up happening to them risks all kinds of conflicts or worse; wasted opportunities for adding interesting content to the story.

I said that writing a death scene was disturbing.  And it is but at the same time it’s interesting to plan how this event will impact each of the adjacent characters.  For instance, it’s not too challenging to have associates and even friends react to a death.  But one of the most likely “victims” has a parent/child relationship with one of the other characters.  That will have to be a developed carefully to produce a satisfactory effect.  So now all of a sudden, my simple dystopian sci-fi book has emotional states like bereavement and anguish.  Who knew?

And a much bigger consideration for being a plotter versus a pantser is how much more important it is if your story is part of a larger series of stories.  If the story doesn’t end with the end of a stand-alone book, then things like killing off characters, even killing off antagonists is much more serious.  If you invest an enormous amount of effort into building up a really wonderful villain then you’d be crazy to kill him off in book one.  Sure, kill off his henchmen; Helmuth and the Tyrant of Thrale by all means.  But Gharlane of Eddore has to last through six or seven books.

And that’s just one aspect of what needs to be coordinated between a series of stories.  Doing that without a map would be very difficult.  And I see that now.  So, I’ll be heading down the path of plotting an outline for the whole story first and then a detailed outline for the first book.  It’ll take a little longer but in the long run it’ll save me a lot of time and it’ll make for better stories.

And on a completely unrelated topic, today I reduced the number of videos I watched of Kamala voters barking at the moon to three.  Well, everything’s relative and I think that’s pretty good progress in kicking the habit.  I remember in 2016 I watched the Hilary shriekers all the way through December and still couldn’t get enough of it.  Now it’s starting to get boring.  Maybe with Trump in the White House we’re all ready to move on from all of this jazz.

Plotter and Pantsers

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Here on the other side of the bright line of demarcation that is the post-2024 election decision I selected outlining the plot of my poor neglected novel “Sniper” as this morning’s project.  Last night was a long planned and greatly enjoyed family party celebrating Princess Sack of Potatoes’ sixth birthday.  It was a good-sized gathering of about thirty people and featured the Princess’s food of choice; multiple versions of pizza.  Now I personally do not believe that something called “mac and cheese” pizza could actually be considered pizza.  It is an abomination in the same league as anything called pizza that contains pineapple.  But I am a tolerant man.  If the children demand mac and cheese pizza then so be it.  I found a giant box that contained something that was garnished with sausage and pepperoni on it and so I was content.  And I even managed to introduce the grandchildren to a small snippet of the classic W.C. Fields movie “It’s a Gift” before it was drowned out by the torrent of talking that erupted when their parents followed us upstairs after the majority of the guests left.  Well, I’ll just have to wait for an opportunity during the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays to screen that cinematic gem for their viewing pleasure.

And because that gathering ended late, I had no time to look around for a theme for last night’s post.  And honestly, I was exhausted.  And if I had tried to post something in that state it would have been stale and derivative and a waste of everybody’s time.  And in this new regimen of mine that is anathema.  I’ll write when I have something I want to say.  And when I don’t, I’ll work on my projects.

And getting back to the theme of this post, my project for today is to review “The Sniper” holistically and identify plot line and character development and quality issues that need to be worked on.  And come up with an outline for the whole story and an outline for the series of stories in this “universe” and then a plan for completing this novel this winter. And then scheduling this work to be finished by some reasonable date.

And this is exciting for me.  It’s an intellectually interesting process that I’ve never tried before.  Up until now I’ve been what’s called a discovery writer or more colloquially a “seat of the pantser” or just a pantser.   This is the opposite of an “outliner” or a plotter.  A discovery writer just sits down and starts writing based on some idea or even just a gestalt of a story and keeps writing and let’s the story write itself without any direction from the author’s conscious mind.  I’ve always done this.  The positive side of this process is that the author’s natural creative instincts are in control and many exciting characters and plot events bubble up.  It is the natural method for producing realistic dialog and emotional insight into the characters.  The negative side is that the story direction is kind of random and you very easily can paint your story into a corner that can only be fixed by a massive re-write which is lethal for story-telling and for the morale of the writer.

And as someone who has run up against this dead-end scenario several times, I have decided to make the effort to do a formal outline and learn the skills it takes to plan my story in a disciplined way so that it won’t fly off the rails at the end and cause me massive mental anguish and confusion.  If I find that working on this outline is interesting, I’ll probably write more about and might even consult some of the sci-fi fans in the audience for their opinions on some of my story choices.

So here I go.