Kara's Book Cravings: Million Dollar Outlines

 

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I do not like to outline my books. I much prefer to sit and write and make things up as I go along, because once I take the time to outline, I feel like I've already told the story and know what happens, so I lose all desire to actually write the story. 

But during an online class I took, a few people raved about the book, Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland. Knowing he'd mentored the author (Stephenie Meyer) of one of my all-time favorite series (Twilight), I figured checking out this book couldn't hurt. Who knew -- maybe his words and methods would change my mind about outlining. 

As you can see based on all the sticky tabs sticking out of this book, I certainly picked up on a lot of useful information. Did reading this make me want to change my mind and start outlining my books? Nope. But, it did make me realize something that I think will help me moving forward.

I'd always thought outlining meant planning what happens chapter-by-chapter, but this book made me realize that's not necessarily the case at all. "Outlining" can be any prep work that goes into writing a book -- everything from deciding the genre to the emotional beats you want to hit to the setting. Which led to my realization...

When I'd started writing the Cursed Series, I took a solid few weeks to develop the curse, the timeline for the curse, Chloe's lineage, the vampire lore, and researching the town where the story takes place. Once I had all of that worked out, writing the actual story was rather easy. I didn't have to stop to look something up, or get sucked into a research rabbit hole because I had already done that prep work. So while I don't ever go in depth in terms of laying out what I want to happen in each chapter, I often do a little outlining prior to writing, and that seems to be enough for me to get the first draft written. 

If you're a fan of outlining, you absolutely need to read this book. If you're more like me, still read this book because I promise you will find something useful in here. What I liked the most, though, was that the author didn't just talk about HOW to outline. He talked about the benefits of outlining, how to retrain your brain to view it differently, and he used examples from popular books to make his points -- and I don't know about anyone else, but seeing the tips translated into successful media / books is super helpful to me. Thanks to this book, I've also bought a couple other craft books that the author recommends. I haven't read them yet, but they are high on my TBR pile. 

Anyone else read this book? Thoughts? Are you an plotter or a pantser? 

The Journey to Self-Publication, Part 4: STILL writing the book(s)

I've gotten quite a few questions about why I finally decided to delve into self-publishing and how I'm doing it, so I figured why not create a new blog series!

Every Monday, I'll be sharing a piece of the self-publishing puzzle---from how I came to this choice to writing, editing, marketing, sales, and everything in between. Please remember that this is simply my experience, how I chose to do things. Others do things differently, and that's fine! So, your mileage may vary, but in the end, I hope seeing yet another way of tackling self-publishing will help you on your path. 

Need to catch up on previous posts? Find them here:

Part 1: Making the Choice

Part 2: Creating an LLC

Part 3: Writing the Book(s)

As I mentioned last week, I'd received some advice from a fellow writer friend, who basically said to write the entire series before I ever published the first book. You'll also recall I promised to explain why this was the best advice I'd ever gotten. And I will, but first, let's talk about how I pantsed my way through a 6 book series, because that directly ties into why this advice was so valuable, for me, anyway. 

I have never been a plotter, and believe me, I have tried. I've read books, taken workshops, talked to hardcore plotters, and tried every method that didn't make my brain hurt. And while I can write out a complete plot, once I do, I feel like I've already told the story. So, why bother actually writing it? I know what happens now, so there's no real excitement for me anymore. Also, if the plot happens to veer off from the outline I created, I feel like I somehow messed everything up, then I become frustrated, and that has resulted in me abandoning way too many projects.  

Pantsing, however, really excites me--it also really annoys me for reasons I'll get into soon. I love not knowing what will happen and figuring it out as I go. I love to be surprised by the characters' actions and experiencing the plot unfold in real time. For me, this is when I do my best writing, when I can just write without any real thought and let the story lead me as opposed to the other way around. 

So, naturally, when I began writing Eternal Curse, I tackled the blank page with nothing more than a loose idea of a cursed vampire and the human girl he's not supposed to love. Actually, that's not true at all... Now that I think about it, originally, this book didn't start out as vampires. It was a completely made up supernatural, shape shifting / demon-like species mingled with humans and witches.

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Yeah, it truly was terrible. LOL. Thankfully, I couldn't, for the life of me, make the story work in anyway that made sense, so I stopped and regrouped and decided to make them vampires. Once I did that, the story fell into place. 

I should add that I did do a lot of work on the backstory for this series. I needed to lay out the curse, how it came into existence, all the dates, and family trees, but that was the extent of my plotting. 

When I reached the end of book 1, I had a loose idea of where I was headed with book 2, and so I jumped into that and started writing. And by loose idea, I mean I had an overarching goal for each book. Like in book 1, I knew it was all about the curse and how Chloe and Trent deal with that. Book 2 is all about making a difficult choice. Sorry... can't tell you about the rest of them because SPOILERS! 

As you'll recall from last week's post, while writing book 2, I came to the realization that I was going to need more than 3 books, so by the time I hit book 3, I knew where I wanted that story to go, and the process continued through all 6 books. This is where pantsing a series becomes a little annoying and frustrating. Because I didn't have a solid outline, I often veered off in a million different directions, which is part of the reason this series blossomed from 3 books to 6. 

But, all of that is why I was SO grateful for that advice I'd been given. 

See, because I hadn't published each book as they were written, I had the freedom to go back and add things into earlier books. I could add subplots and new characters that I then carried (or killed, depending on my mood) throughout the rest of the series, constantly building from one book to the next. 

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Had the books been published, I wouldn't have been able to go back and make changes. I mean, I could have (the beauty of being in complete control when self-publishing), but if people who had already read book 1 picked up book 2 and there was all this stuff going on that was never in the version of book 1 that they read because I revised after they'd read it, they'd be confused. 

And trust me when I say I went back to the start of this series a LOT throughout the writing process. In fact, here are some quick stats:

Book 1: 

# of versions -- 3

Original word count -- 98,000

Final word count -- 102,000

Book 2: 

# of versions -- 4

Original word count -- 89,600

Final word count -- 110,150

Book 3: 

# of versions -- 2

Original word count -- 92,000

Final word count -- 115,160

Book 4: 

# of versions -- 5 

Original word count -- 106,250

Final word count -- 120,108

Book 5: 

# of versions -- 2

Original word count -- 88,100

Final word count -- 108,050

Book 6: 

# of versions -- 2 

Original word count -- 82,000

Final word count -- TBD

As you can see, I tend to draft on the shorter side and really beef it up during revisions. Haha. I make no apologies. I love this series, and I hope everyone else will, too. 

Okay, back to the point of this post... Moving forward, I will always follow the advice I'd been given because it works really well for me. There's also a whole host of reasons why this is a smart idea, but those involve marketing aspects, so we'll get into those later. 

Overall, writing this series in this manner allowed me to change and adapt and flesh out the entire series as a whole as I went, rather than writing myself into a corner or being locked into something that happened in earlier books because I had already published them.  

This process also helped tremendously while working with CPs, beta readers, and editors, which is exactly what I'll be talking about next week 😀 

Got questions? 

Drop them in the comments!

The Evolution of my Writing Process

Yesterday, when I was supposed to be writing but was wasting time on Facebook instead, I happened upon THIS BLOG POST by Emmie Mears. (Language warning for those who are sensitive to cursing.) Go on. Read it. I'll wait...

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Done? Good.

Great post, right? It really spoke to me, too, and I realized, "Hey, I've struggled with this very thing!" For me, Emmie's post freed me. It showed me that I'm not the only one who struggles to keep writing or with understanding HOW to write. I always see other authors talking about plotting and character GMCs and beat sheets and series bibles and I'm over here like....


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Is there something wrong with me? How come I can't do all that stuff? Is my way the wrong way? Are my books bad because I don't have all that fancy plannin' and stuff early on?

Am I a fraud?

I'm totally a fraud, right? I mean, all the great authors plot, don't they?

In many ways, writing my very first book was the easiest. I wrote for the simple joy of writing. And then I wrote some more. And then more. And then I learned stuff, and well, writing became harder. There's a common misconception that the more books you write, the easier it is; and I suppose on certain levels, it is. But at the same time, it's not.

So, I figured it might be fun to show the evolution of my writing process, and maybe it would help some of you like Emmie's post helped me.

2011 - Word Vomit Master 

JANUARY --  I decided to write my first book. A contemporary romance. Turns out it's considered New Adult. That wasn't a thing way back then, so I called it an adult romance. The characters are in college. But I digress...

This book was 76,364 words of glorious word vomit! Yep. That's right. It was pure word vomit. The words poured out of me within a short 4 weeks. No, that's not a typo. This baby came out hard and fast. There was a prologue, 54 chapters, and an epilogue. I was rockin' the whole writing thing!

I had no idea what plotting even was or how to do it. I mean, I had a basic idea of what I wanted to happen within the story, but it was very weak and loose. I literally wrote whatever came to my mind. It was 90% dialogue. I had 5...no, wait, SIX different POVs, sometimes all within the same chapter. It. Was. Bad.

But you know what? I had FUN writing it!

MARCH-- I wasn't anywhere close to being done yet. I dove straight in to the sequel. This one was even better, y'all. I banged out another prologue, 89 chapters, and an epilogue for a total of 163,550 words in a matter of 6 weeks.

MAY -- I started reading craft books. I also joined a critique group. I very quickly learned everything I was doing wrong -- which was a LOT -- but I also learned how to fix those things and write a tighter, more believable story with characters who were more like real people. I still wasn't a plotter though!

JUNE / JULY -- I began work on a new book, which I still refused to plot. But I could see the improvement in myself.

2012 -- The More the Merrier

The best part of my critique group was that I could submit my work to the group. They would read it and then give me advice on how to make it better. I. Was. Addicted! I craved the feedback, and I overused it, too. I began to implement every single change they suggested until my work was no longer mine but a joint effort by everyone who read it. Even though the quality of my writing had increased exponentially, I wasn't really having any fun anymore.

So, I wrote a couple (four to be exact) short novellas. All by myself. Without any feedback from my critique group. And you know what?

THEY WERE PUBLISHED!!! Not just one, but several.

I was reinvigorated.

I wrote another book. This one a young adult romance.

2013 -- Hardcore Pantser

I started on another book. And then another. And another. Again, no plotting or outlining, but my end product was much better than anything I'd written up to this point. I was learning, growing, becoming an even better writer. Everything I had written was ALWAYS written in a linear fashion -- I started with chapter one and progressed through the story chapter-by-chapter, in order. But I noticed something: I was having a really hard time writing anything else. I'd start a lot of things but never finish them. I didn't complete a single book or novella during this year.

2014 -- Parading as a Plotter

I ventured into the co-authoring arena, not once but twice, with two different authors. Because of the nature of writing with someone else, I HAD to plot. There was no way around it. I needed to make sure I was on the same page with my co-authors at all times. The plotting we did was very loose though. It was basically:

Chapter 1: All this stuff happens.
Chapter 2: Then all this stuff happens.

It wasn't intricate or groundbreaking, but it served the purpose. And I realized something: The words and the writing came easier to me. I knew what was coming and therefore, I didn't have any trouble writing it.

I'd found a new process! With my two co-authors, I worked on and finished two full-length books in 2014. I was going to take this new writing process and run with it!

2015 -- IDK WTF I'm Doing Anymore

I completely outlined a brand new adult romance. I wrote almost 25K and then I hit a road block. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't finish it. After some serious soul searching I realized it was because I had outlined. I knew exactly what was going to happen and so I wasn't excited to write it. I felt like the story had already been told.

Then something strange happened... I had a dream. A very vivid dream about a girl who kissed a boy; a boy who didn't kiss her back. All sorts of questions raced through my mind as I tried to figure out the why, who, what, when of the scenario. I sat down later that morning and just started writing that scene I'd dreamed about. I knew it wouldn't be the start of the story, but that was okay.

I wrote the entire middle section of the book.

Then I wrote the big black moment and the resulting fallout.

After all that, I went back and wrote the beginning; and then I filled in any remaining holes.

For the first time in more than year, I had finished a book ALL ON MY OWN!

2016 -- Faking It Until I Make It

Do I still feel like a fraud? You betcha! Almost daily.

I still can't, don't, and won't plot. Writing out of order and then filling in the gaps still seems to be working for me. And so that's what I'm going to stick with until it no longer works. What will I do then? Who knows. But I'll adapt and find something new that works. In the meantime, I'm close to finishing my first full-length novel of the year, and I have plans to write a second one by October -- actually, I'm contractually obligated, so....

But at the end of the day, there's no one correct way to write a book. Everyone has their own process and methods. And that's okay! As Emmie so eloquently put it in her post: YOU DO YOU! Who cares how everyone else does it? You're not them. You're you. Go be you!


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