Outlining

Somewhere in one of my last writing posts I mentioned that I’d been having trouble when I came to the climax areas of novels. So this week I am working on beefing up my outlines, all the way down to scene synopsis, themes I’m trying to add in, and symbolism I’d like to use to add more depth to my writing. I’m working out of Lazette Gifford’s 2YN books and mainly using her outlining methods at the moment. That is where this particular novel actually started, oh, eight years ago. I did about 6 months of her classes (out of the 24 months she teaches; she covers from first ideas to finding an agent and sending query letters, and finally selling your novel) and then life just kept getting in the way. So for the rest of this month, I’m doing all the rest of the prep work I never finished before and I’m spending a couple hours a day on it for every “week” of the 2YN book (which was all I’d end up spending during the course of the week way back when I first started, so I think I’m good). I should end up writing at the point of actual writing just as Nanowrimo starts up, and when you condense down several of the “weeks” where she just shows you various ways of opening books across different genres you actually come out to thirty “weeks” of writing. November has 30 days and BAM, I’m doing a chapter a day. 🙂 That’s my plan, anyways.