Go Team Evil Clowns!

Whee!

So, I'm three for three on anthologies, and one for two on short-short submissions. Not bad. Seems to me I maybe ought to rethink this whole "the novel is my only strength; short stories not so much" stance.

It's very weird. I'm far more comfortable writing novels than short stories, but if the shorts are going to get bought, I should maybe write a few more of them and look for submission points. Or vice versa. Or something.

I'm really pleased about my clown story. Because it's actually a nice sly pro-choice story: "I don't choose to be the Lamb of God and ignite the apocalypse." But you're the Chosen One! You have to! It's written! "Yeah, well, you didn't ask me first, so PFTPFTPHPFTPH!"

I'm debating whether or not I should write more from a plan with Anna than I did with Lucy. Because I can really see in hindsight how much Lucy's plot suffers from me just sailing in without a clear vision of where I was going and how to get there.

What I don't want to do is one of those hideously detailed outlines/synopses that some books and writing classes advise, and many writers swear by. I know one class through UW Extension that requires you to hand in a 50-page synopsis before starting on the book itself. Which would drive me crazy--if you write toward the short end of the novel spectrum, that's a quarter the length of the book! Granted, I write twice that long, but still. I also don't want to do the detailed character biographies and goal-motivation-conflict charts a lot of the writers I know adore. Even though deep down I know it's not true, I'd rather feel I was discovering my characters and plot than building them from scratch. In general, overplanning would strip all the magic and joy out of the process for me.

So what I'm thinking of doing is working from a brief outline--1 or 2 pages--with the important story events and brief notes on why they're important. And then I'm going to make an estimate of how far along in the story each plot point should occur. I'm shooting for 100,000 words, give or take 10,000, because that's a good marketable length for this type of story. And while I'm not going to sacrifice everything for the sake of marketability, if I can tell this story right it's going to rock hard. I want it to have a chance to sell, and controlling the pacing and my tendency to ramble on forever is a sacrifice worth making. So if I know that Big Moment X should occur before pg. 75, or that Turning Point Y should be no more than 2/3 of the way through, that helps me stay on target.

That's the theory, at least. I'm still a beginner at this.

I *would* do the outline, Susan, except I do not think like that in the least.I've changed my mind about my protagonist's life three different times, and those would all be different books.

Susan, I feel completely unqualified to offer advice on this one. Except, maybe, to go with your gut, which seems to be telling you to do at least a minimal amout of story planning first.

Yay, Deb! Congrats on making the anthology.

Oh, yeah, Deb. Go you!

Congrats, Deb!

For big stuff, I always outline, at least as far as "Before X can happen, Q and R have to happen, so I'd better get Person A and B into position." I generally know what I want the big end piece to be, so I need the "outline/road map" (once an Excel spreadsheet) to make sure I haven't left the bad guy 50 miles behind the county line when all the good guys are drawn up for the Final Battle.

I've never let an outline nail me down if the gates of heaven open before me and the Scroll of Universal Understanding suddenly unrolls and presents the perfect plot complication or character twist. The outline lets me see where it'll fit, or it shows the places where events can stretch to allow the development can occur.

(It's a sort of geometry, but I'll avoid the mathy comparisons)