How do you start your new book? Mistakes and hints?
Posted: 16 Sep 2015, 12:12
Starting my 4th novel and having lots of false starts, fits and spurts, dead ends, all sorts of misadventures.
So I'm wondering how you start a new book (or short story or whatever fiction). Do you outline in a detailed manner? Do you have multiple plot threads buzzing around in your head? Or do you seem to get rolling pretty easily?
Here's my startup story and what I did to get things going -- I'm starting my 4th in the "Mitch King" series of modern American private detective novels. So...
I first started several overall story lines, each of which I could take as the principal thread to pursue:
1. A priest is being blackmailed. He's gay and in the closet and another priest asks Mitch for help.
2. Mitch's good friend has been killed in a traffic accident. But it soon becomes a murder investigation.
3. Mitch's college roommate is now a professor and is receiving death threats.
4. Mitch is helping security at a big computer conference and gets involved in a feud between two former business partners, now enemies. Then one of them is murdered and the other is the principal suspect.
5. A friend of Mitch is of Vietnamese ethnicity. There are murders being committed among Vietnamese and Mitch is asked to help.
I started all these 5 possible main plots and wrote 3-4 chapters of along these various plot lines, tossed my mind back and forth. I spent most of a month on these things and couldn't decide. All seemed okay stories.
Now at no time did I outline or even decide "who did it" except that I had general story lines to work from. Should I do more outlining? Would a more formal outline help? Do you outline?
So... After some jostling and messing around. I decided that plot #2 is the one I will start on, and I'll save the other possibles for later. I also "borrowed" a little of story #5 to blend with #2, making it a subplot.
Next I started Chapter 1 with a little whimsical story about Mitch and his Vietnamese pal heading out to meet someone, and a few chapters later, bringing in the main story about the friend's death.
I worked on this a while and changed my mind once more. I put the death of the friend as Chapter 1, starting off in a dark and somber tone. Then the secondary story line comes later.
Right now, this seems the better choice but hey, I may change my mind again. I'm allowed!
What is the procedure you follow when starting a new book? Do you outline and find them helpful, or do you find outlines too restrictive? Do you just start writing and go back later and fix it? Or do you plan more carefully and write quite precisely from the start?
What sort of tricks and helps do you find you can use that allow you to proceed nicely with your new novel?
So I'm wondering how you start a new book (or short story or whatever fiction). Do you outline in a detailed manner? Do you have multiple plot threads buzzing around in your head? Or do you seem to get rolling pretty easily?
Here's my startup story and what I did to get things going -- I'm starting my 4th in the "Mitch King" series of modern American private detective novels. So...
I first started several overall story lines, each of which I could take as the principal thread to pursue:
1. A priest is being blackmailed. He's gay and in the closet and another priest asks Mitch for help.
2. Mitch's good friend has been killed in a traffic accident. But it soon becomes a murder investigation.
3. Mitch's college roommate is now a professor and is receiving death threats.
4. Mitch is helping security at a big computer conference and gets involved in a feud between two former business partners, now enemies. Then one of them is murdered and the other is the principal suspect.
5. A friend of Mitch is of Vietnamese ethnicity. There are murders being committed among Vietnamese and Mitch is asked to help.
I started all these 5 possible main plots and wrote 3-4 chapters of along these various plot lines, tossed my mind back and forth. I spent most of a month on these things and couldn't decide. All seemed okay stories.
Now at no time did I outline or even decide "who did it" except that I had general story lines to work from. Should I do more outlining? Would a more formal outline help? Do you outline?
So... After some jostling and messing around. I decided that plot #2 is the one I will start on, and I'll save the other possibles for later. I also "borrowed" a little of story #5 to blend with #2, making it a subplot.
Next I started Chapter 1 with a little whimsical story about Mitch and his Vietnamese pal heading out to meet someone, and a few chapters later, bringing in the main story about the friend's death.
I worked on this a while and changed my mind once more. I put the death of the friend as Chapter 1, starting off in a dark and somber tone. Then the secondary story line comes later.
Right now, this seems the better choice but hey, I may change my mind again. I'm allowed!
What is the procedure you follow when starting a new book? Do you outline and find them helpful, or do you find outlines too restrictive? Do you just start writing and go back later and fix it? Or do you plan more carefully and write quite precisely from the start?
What sort of tricks and helps do you find you can use that allow you to proceed nicely with your new novel?