Last month I finished outlining my yet-to-be-titled novel. Although it took longer than I’d hoped, I’m proud of myself for completing it. I thought I’d have a title by the time I finished, but I’m still drawing a blank. Coming up with titles isn’t my strength (one of my friends came up with the titles for each of my short stories, so that should tell you something), but I’m not getting hung up on it right now. My focus is on completing the first draft.

I’ve spent a lot of time blogging about finding and accepting my own writing process, and for the most part I have. There are moments when I question what I’m doing, but I don’t stew over it for long. There’s no point. It’s a waste of time and energy that’s better spent writing. But I did learn something about myself that might be true for some of you. I need an outline.

There’s no way I can write a murder mystery without organizing my story and plotting it out first. All of my stories are in Google Docs. I have folders for my blog posts, short stories, and my WIP. The folders for my stories and WIP have sub-folders for character development, scenes, and the outline. Whatever research I do goes into a folder as well. If I don’t have it all organized, then I’m going to rip out my hair.

Once I got past accepting the need for plotting, I didn’t care how long my outline was going to be. My goal was to write until I finished book one. My outline is 99 pages. Yep, you read that right. NINETY-NINE PAGES long, but it’s actually less than that. When I’m unsure about a scene or the dialogue, instead of deleting it entirely, I strikethrough it. When I start drafting, if what I have isn’t working, then I won’t use it. On the off-chance I want to use it, then it’s still on the page. I don’t delete anything unless I’m 100% sure it doesn’t belong in the story.

When I outline, I do it by chapter so I know what action was included, if a cliffhanger is needed, and how the story is building up. It helps me pace out my novel.

I also highlight what needs further attention or research. When I’m on a roll, I don’t want to stop and go on a scavenger hunt with Google. To keep track of the days, I use orange highlighter. When I need to research or give further detail regarding the setting, I use green. I use yellow for anything else.

Even though I was familiar with my protagonist, I wasn’t the same with the secondary characters. By the time I finished plotting, I had a better understanding of who they were and what role they played, if any, in my MC’s life. I create character development templates and sometimes I do personality tests or Enneagrams for my characters. I haven’t done any tests for my current WIP, but I did more research on psychopaths after I finished the outline. I wanted to know if they were capable of love or having a relationship with the opposite sex, and what that would look like. I also wanted to know more behind the why with regards to my villain’s behavior. My outline reveals all the players. Now I’m fleshing them out more so they seem as realistic as fiction can get.

I’m not going for perfection. I’m just doing the best I can with the skills I have. I’m also keeping my audience in mind. Even though I’m writing fiction, mysteries are a different ballgame. Mystery novels need to be as realistic as possible without losing the flow and suspense. When you include a homicide detective or an FBI agent, you want to portray the character as realistic as possible, but, at the same time, you want to keep the action going. Writers walk a fine line between writing something plausible while not getting bogged down in the details. I’m a little creative with my characters, but I don’t want my readers rolling their eyes because something seems too far-fetched. Readers aren’t stupid.

Once the fine-tuning is done, that’s when the writing truly begins. I can’t wait to tell Nadia’s story and I hope readers enjoy it. Like I said, I’m not striving for perfection (I’ll never finish the book if I do). I’m writing the best story I can write with the tools I have. 🙂

How about you? How is your current project coming along? What have you learned about yourself as a writer?