So, it turns out I should be a plotter.\u00a0 Looking at my story from the point of view of character arcs it became obvious that I haven\u2019t even decided on several characters\u2019 outcomes that are pivotal to a satisfying resolution to the plot.\u00a0 Put succinctly, somebody\u2019s got to die.\u00a0 And maybe that\u2019s part of the reason why I haven\u2019t moved those character arcs along.\u00a0 I\u2019ve grown fond of all my main characters and deciding which of them has to die and then writing that outcome is disturbing.\u00a0 But I do see it has to be done and I\u2019ve begun working out the scenario.<\/p>\n
So now I understand why just drifting along on plot can be very problematic for anything more complicated than a short story.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
I said that writing a death scene was disturbing.\u00a0 And it is but at the same time it\u2019s interesting to plan how this event will impact each of the adjacent characters.\u00a0 For instance, it\u2019s not too challenging to have associates and even friends react to a death.\u00a0 But one of the most likely \u201cvictims\u201d has a parent\/child relationship with one of the other characters.\u00a0 That will have to be a developed carefully to produce a satisfactory effect.\u00a0 So now all of a sudden, my simple dystopian sci-fi book has emotional states like bereavement and anguish.\u00a0 Who knew?<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 If the story doesn\u2019t end with the end of a stand-alone book, then things like killing off characters, even killing off antagonists is much more serious.\u00a0 If you invest an enormous amount of effort into building up a really wonderful villain then you\u2019d be crazy to kill him off in book one.\u00a0 Sure, kill off his henchmen; Helmuth and the Tyrant of Thrale by all means.\u00a0 But Gharlane of Eddore has to last through six or seven books.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s just one aspect of what needs to be coordinated between a series of stories.\u00a0 Doing that without a map would be very difficult.\u00a0 And I see that now.\u00a0 So, I\u2019ll be heading down the path of plotting an outline for the whole story first and then a detailed outline for the first book.\u00a0 It\u2019ll take a little longer but in the long run it\u2019ll save me a lot of time and it\u2019ll make for better stories.<\/p>\n
And on a completely unrelated topic, today I reduced the number of videos I watched of Kamala voters barking at the moon to three.\u00a0 Well, everything\u2019s relative and I think that\u2019s pretty good progress in kicking the habit.\u00a0 I remember in 2016 I watched the Hilary shriekers all the way through December and still couldn\u2019t get enough of it.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s starting to get boring.\u00a0 Maybe with Trump in the White House we\u2019re all ready to move on from all of this jazz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, it turns out I should be a plotter.\u00a0 Looking at my story from the point of view of character arcs it became obvious that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1289,818,1263,4],"tags":[1290,265],"class_list":["post-31161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-fiction-by-me","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-sff","tag-my-fiction","tag-science-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\n