National Novel Writing Month has decided to go to camp. August has been turned into Camp NaNo, another opportunity to write a novel in thirty one days. This is a great opportunity for me to rewrite my vampire novel. I wrote it once in November, but I didn't like the way it ended up. So it's time I rewrite it.
How do I make sure that this time my novel comes out the way it's supposed to?
Starting with outlines doesn't always work for me. I get bogged down in the little details and end up changing things. That's part of the reason I didn't like how my novel turned out. I also tend to jot down scene ideas in my everyday writing journal. This let to scenes being lost in the pages among poetry and short stories.
Once I filled my last notebook, I made sure to get one that had dividers. My awesome plan for one section being poetry and the other fiction didn't work so hot, but I did have a divider to keep my scenes separate. After jotting down the scenes, I found it easier to see which ones wouldn't work with others and how to find a better thread of the story. Easing the scenes into an outline only required shuffling the parts, not writing them.
It also gave me an opportunity to write two outlines to ponder. There were a couple scenes that could be placed in different spots to give me a completely different novel. I've got to finish up the details and get it to a friend for an opinion today (because he wouldn't understand what “Blood spoiled again” without details). Then I can develop the winning idea even more.
This is definitely a strategy that I am going to be following in the future. What organizational skills help you write?
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