In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* From James Scott Bell
* Yesterday
* Topic: The Reverse Outline (RO) Revisited
* Today
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E. L. Doctorow
From James Scott Bell’s newsletter, ” how about some old-school pulp fiction… free! My favorite genre is crime/detective fiction from the golden era, 1920-1950. Here’s a treasure trove, including issues of the most famous pulp of all, Black Mask (I download the PDFs and read them on my phone): https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive.
If you like classic science fiction, stroll through complete copies of the famous pulp magazine, Amazing Stories: https://archive.org/details/amazingstoriesmagazine.
Topic: The Reverse Outline (RO) Revisited
It’s been awhile since I talked about this. Because the RO for my current work is much more complex and *important than for other works, I thought a discussion was in order.
As some of you know from previous posts, I keep the RO on a Notepad (.txt) document, which I keep open while I’m writing.
Note that I do not work FROM this outline. I work TO the outline (hence, reverse outline).
You can put anything you want in the RO. Its purpose is to serve as a reminder and quick reference as you write the novel. For example, it’s easier to glance over at the RO than to scroll back through dozens of pages of a novel to find the color of a character’s eyes.
But at a minimum, the RO contains the title, followed by a list of character names and attributes (eyes, hair, occupation, etc.), followed by a list of important place/street names. This might be towns, buildings, etc. Anything that might recur as you’re writing.
And all of that is followed by the chapter numbers listed down the left side of the page. As I finish a chapter, I skip over to the RO and write a sentence or two describing what happened in that chapter. Again, things I might need to remember later.
My current RO is incredibly detailed. The book has a cast of thousands. Initially it spans the galaxy, though the focus soon slips past “worldwide” and narrows to one small city somewhere in the Midwest, where the bulk of the story takes place.
Just to give you an idea, this story has 15 named human characters (3 or 4 are POV characters) and 12 named alien characters (4 are POV characters).
It also has around a dozen place and street names, plus a note that avenues run east and west and streets run north and south.
It has around 30 names and calibers of firearms, types of knives, names of alien techniques and creatures, foodstuffs and other “titles” I might have to refresh my memory on at different places in the book. And a lot more. Even the chapter summaries are a bit more detailed than usual.
Why is this RO so detailed? Primarily, as I said at the beginning, as a quick reference so I don’t have to scan through (or search) pages of the novel to find something I need in the moment.
*But I also mentioned at the top, this RO is “important.” That’s because I’m considering opening this up as a shared world. So this novel, along with the detailed RO, will become the genesis bible for that shared world.
As an aside, how weird is it that of all the genres I write, the two I’m considering opening as shared worlds are both “they came here” SF? (grin)
So if you’re interested in writing the HUMAN or ALIEN stories based in this new world, let me know. You can email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. (Remember, ALL good fiction is based on characters and their reactions to what’s going on around them.)
Any resulting books or stories, whether written by me or by you, will add to and expand the bible, of course.
So that’s what I’m thinking at the moment. Let me know if you’re insterested and I’ll start a list of possible authors.
Yesterday once the Journal was gone, I went to the writing computer and wrote the end of the book in a little over 2100 words. And I still have to cycle through it. And I’m what Stephen King calls a putter-inner. (grin)
Then I lived in fear until I saved it to a thumb drive so I could transfer it to the business computer, which is hooked up to the internet. Now I have it on my writing ‘puter, the thumb drive, my business computer and in my Dropbox. Ahh! That’s better.
Then at 8 a.m. I took a break. When I came back at 9, I updated my reverse outline and as I went back and forth, updated the novel a bit too.
Took another break for lunch, then came back at noon and started cycling through from the beginning. Flipping back and forth between cycling and keeping the reverse outline updated, I got through Chapter 5. You’ll see the results in Day 3 below.
Today, just more of the same. As soon as I post this, I’m heading back to continue cycling through the novel.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “One Word and Done” at https://stevenpressfield.com/2020/04/one-word-and-done/.
See “Storytelling Lessons in 60 Seconds or Less” at https://killzoneblog.com/2020/04/storytelling-lessons-in-60-seconds-or-less-2.html. A fun post about classic commercials.
See “Authors Need Attorneys” at https://prowriterswriting.com/authors-need-attorneys.
For a good and short interview with author Jeff Shaara, see https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4753426/jeff-shaara-writing-process. (Thanks, Phillip!)
See “Doing a Class On Writing Creative Nonfiction” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/creative-nonfiction/.
See “How to Put Together an Indie Author Anthology” at https://www.janefriedman.com/indie-author-anthology/.
See “Business Musings: My Travels This Week (A Process Blog)” at https://kriswrites.com/2020/04/15/business-musings-my-travels-this-week-a-process-blog/. Meh. FWIW.
See “Amazon is a Data Gathering and Filtering Tool” at https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2020/04/amazon-is-a-data-gathering-and-filtering-tool/.
The Numbers
Fiction words yesterday…………………… 3275
Nonfiction words today…………… 960 (Journal)
Writing of For the Good of the Galaxy (novel)
Words brought forward…………………………………………………… 72304
Day 1…… 2437 words. Total words to date…… 74741
Day 2…… 3948 words. Total words to date…… 78689
Day 3…… 3275 words. Total words to date…… 81964
Total fiction words for the month……… 30357
Total fiction words for the year………… 238339
Total nonfiction words for the month… 12830
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 93980
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 332319
Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 3
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 12
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 48
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 208
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31