Welcome Back

First, I want to thank any and all of you who have been following this and showing support. It definitely helped my morale. Thank you all very much, whether it was from discord, facebook, friends and family, or comments on steemit, you know who you are.

In this post I'm going to go over how and why I wrote the synopsis, what kinds of questions I asked to expand it, a new book I came across, the hurdle I ran into, and how and why I resolved it the way I did.

Lets look at my goals for the last two weeks.

(January)WEEK 2 GOAL
Bruja Livia: Arcs and synopses complete

(January)WEEK 3 GOAL
Bruja Livia: Chapter scene index cards completed

Week 3 concluded January so at this point I should be at the end of day 1 for the first week of February.

(January)MONTHLY GOAL
Bruja Livia: Finish all research and scrivener info for Bruja Livia

(February) WEEK 1
Bruja Livia: 20,000 words written and self-edited

I should be in the writing process. Today I have not actually written any of the story. In fact, I only just finished my first scene index card.

Scene Index Cards

There you'll see a cork board with multiple index cards. When writing each chapter that cork board will be replaced by a blank canvas to type out the scene. In the upper right corner you'll see another index card that says "3 Acts Structure" on it.

Each chapter on the scrivener document will have an index card giving unique information from answering the same 5 questions for each and every scene:

Scene goal. What do I need the reader to know at the end of this scene?

What emotion(s) am I trying to evoke?

Pick your point of view. Who has the most to lose?

What is the setting like? What are some good sensory details?

How can I further raise the tension?

So, the plan was, to go through my fully completed synopsis line by line and figure out where each chapter ends and begins. I then high-light and append(both easy to use tools on scrivener) each block of text to the chapter document. I'm not going to bother explaining how to do that as scrivener includes a thorough tutorial.

I then planned to go through each chapter and fill in the 5 steps listed above to set up each scene/chapter. This would be done to make the writing as straight-forward as possible. Not only did I fall behind on that, but I fell behind on creating my arcs. In fact, the whole process got sort of put on hold, then I went back and played with the synopsis, then I put everything on hold again.

Let's rewind a bit. I was a little ahead on my goals. I started to write the synopsis, which is a summary of the entire novel. I planned to write 2 to 3 paragraphs and then do as Chris Fox says and bring out my inner 5-year-old:

The little voice that asks, "Why?" to everything in it possibly can.

Let me give you an example.(this is not from Bruja Livia)

Synopsis: A man is lost in a forest. He discovers a hermit who gives him directions. The man follows the directions and is free of being lost in the forest.

Why is a man lost in the forest?
Because he's never been there before.

Why has he never been there before?
Because he's from a different continent and his ship wrecked and he wandered into a forest searching for food and shelter and became lost.

Why was he sailing from a different continent?
Because he was a slave on a slave ship that was bringing him to a new continent for trade purposes.

So far the synopsis is expanded to:
A slave ship wrecks upon the shore of its destination and a survivor goes into the forest looking for food and shelter.

We haven't even gotten to the hermit yet.

From here I keep on expanding the synopsis until I feel the story is complete enough for me to have to fill minimal holes in the plot as I write each scene.

I would then locate my character and plot arcs.

3 Acts Structure

Part 1
-Inciting incident
-First doorway

Part 2
-Crises
-Second doorway

Part 3
-Final confrontation
-New equilibrium established

First doorway, second doorway, and climax(or final confrontation) are your plot arcs. These are moments that your hero and characters go through their arcs(changes/growth)

You can find the basics on these here.

I was back on track with my goals. I had already written 1500 words for my first synopsis. I was to go in and ask questions, which I did. I didn't think I'd have many.

After going through my first synopsis line by line and had 100 questions. I went in and answered them all and expanded my synopsis to 4500 words. I felt like it was complete enough. I was beginning to fill in dialogue in the synopsis which I think is over-kill. It took a bit longer than expected but I was still well on my way. I just needed to get the arcs down(which I knew wouldn't take long after finishing the synopsis). Finding the arcs is just about locating them within the synopsis. They were already written.

So What happened?

This Happened!

More accurately:

This happened first. Which lead to the webinar by John Truby that was still available, and I watched.

I was going to brush up on the school of Chris Fox for the arcs and noticed the new video.

John Truby has quite a track record. In the webinar he went over "narrative drive." After watching the video, and being thoroughly intrigued, I was convinced that it is not possible to write a successful novel without properly executing this idea of narrative drive.

So I bought The Anatomy of Story

It's 400+ pages and it's dense with exercises.

Here's the problem...

Getting as far as I have in my process and then reading Truby's book is like having created the blueprints, laid the foundation, and built the supporting skeleton of the structure(studs, support beams, etc) and then someone handing you a new blue print and telling you to turn what you have into the new structure and maintain the same deadline.

Guys, my brain couldn't handle it. I would spend 5 minutes thinking about the story and was then too tired to do anything.

Please don't misunderstand me, I am by no means knocking or arguing that Truby's book isn't invaluable. However, in my current process and phase, after spending about a week rethinking everything in the fear of putting out a novel that wouldn't "be as good as it could be for the best possible chance of success," I realized that I wouldn't be able to put out the novel in the time I had planned. I'd probably need another month. I decided:

This is my first novel, not my last. It's not going to be perfect. And with the originally planned methodology, and sticking to the original schedule, I believe that it could very well find success.

I did pick up some interesting things that helped me with certain parts of the story that felt a little flat. For now though, I'm putting Truby's book down.

The last thing I want to share here was something unexpected happened in writing the synopsis as well. I was brainstorming how to present each chapter title. I hadn't given it much thought before and assumed I would use Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.

My default POV is 3rd person past tense, which I assumed would go well with fantasy/folklore. After going through the synopsis I found a better method to fit my story.

I am currently decided upon 1st person limited as well as naming each chapter by the character we are following. I could go into why I decided upon this, but I don't want to give too much of the story away. The point here is that as you write your novel you must not be afraid to let it live, breathe, and adapt.

Recognize the sign posts, troublesome as they may seem, and let them guide you along.

In my next post I'll go over my first week of writing the actual story and some of the goals I have taken out of order.

Thank you again for following me on this endeavor into uncharted waters. Please share with me your questions, comments, and feedback.