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)

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.

Definitely. Inspiration has to trump the outline.

In related news, I'm wrestling with Anna's motivation toward the end of the book. I need to have her initially balk at the prospect of marrying Jack. At first I was going to have it be all because her first marriage made her risk-averse and unwilling to remarry anyone ever, and I think it's OK for that to be part of the reason. But I think it's implausible as her main motive, because if she's not thoroughly convinced Jack is a different sort of man altogether by this point in the book, she's too stupid to be a heroine of mine.

Which leaves me with the class difference, which certainly makes a plausible motive, given that I'm trying to make Anna a realistic woman of her times rather than a 21st century American in fancy dress. And it gets added strength from the fact she knows damn well marrying him would mean giving up all contact with the vast majority of a close-knit and well-loved family.

I think it works, I'm just afraid it makes her unsympathetic. But I should probably stop worrying about it and just write it the way I think is most believable.

Right?

Could someone guilt her about a specific relative she is particularly close to? Her aunt who nursed her through Scarlet Fever when she was eight or something? "Everyone will be heartbroken about this of course, but your Aunt Sophia will never recover."

Susan, is she pregnant by that point? What if you couch her resistance as fear/sadness that her brother won't get to part of her baby's life? Or that he won't be part of her life? If she's motivated more by strong emotional connections than simply losing a more upper-class lifestyle, that would be a more sympathetic motivation, I think.

Also, you could make her realize that she is being weak about it, that she fears she's not strong enough to risk everything for love, especially when what she thought was love once turned out so horribly. After all, Simon was pretty cool until they actually married, right? So she might even recognize that it's an ungrounded fear, since Jack is so different, but still have that irrational doubt, "What if he changes when we're actually husband and wife?" It might make her willingness to choose him, for better or worse, in the end that much more heroic, too.

And with those two cents, I am for bed.