So, around the time of last NaNoWriMo (aka-November), I was writing a first draft of the third book in my series, and I decided it could be interesting/useful to draft as much of my series as I could as quickly as I thought I could manage.
Thus was born my plan to plot and write four 50,000-word books in thirteen months:
NaNo 2018: Write Book 3 ✔
Camp NaNo April 2019: Write Book 4 ✔
Camp NaNo July 2019: Write Book 5
NaNo 2019: Write Book 6
& more to follow…
In addition to these sessions of NaNo and Camp NaNo providing me set goals and deadlines for the writing of each book, the timing of those sessions also provide me with goals and deadlines for plotting each book. This schedule allows me with about four months to plot Book 4, two months to plot Book 5, and three months to plot Book 6. Plotting Book 4 seemed to work rather well, with a decently detailed timeline of chapters (except the end, which was a couple sections as paragraph descriptions of what happened at the end of the story- those I did not break up on the timeline, though I will go back to document the chapters for my reference later). It probably helped that book three really wanted written, and then as soon as it was finished, book four really, really wanted written.
It took about a week, and a rough idea of the first half of Book 5 for my Pantser nature to take over. My brain jumped straight into “Great! Now we can start writing” mode, even with no actual story to speak of (more like some information for several of the characters, and a rough idea of how some new elements to the series are being brought in).
I had to give my Pantser side a stern talking to… that reasoning is why I currently have half (probably more like two-thirds) of a draft of book 2 that is rather poorly defined for one storyline and stopped short (50,000 words, but a large gap of unknown material before the known-but-unwritten finale). I will be fixing book 2 as I go through edits, but at least for books 3 and 4, I’ve gotten a completed draft, with a beginning, middle, and end. That should make the process a bit smoother. It is also where I find myself trying to plot book 5 before I start writing come July.
Some of the things I need to focus on are making sure:
- Characters are displaying the proper amount of growth for that part of the story (this applies to both new characters and old characters)
- The plot is cohesive within the book
- The plot of the book is consistent with the rest of the series
- The pacing of each book in the series is appropriate for its place within the story arc of the series
The points of plot details and the pacing for the book and series as a whole is part of what makes this book (and the next one) particularly tricky. If too many things fall in place too quickly, the story won’t flow correctly. Now, I will say that beyond the first six books, I don’t explicitly have much planned, so that will present its own challenges, but at the very least, I know I’m looking for the tipping point in the series to come somewhere in the end-of-book-6 to beginning-of-book-7 range.
The big question remains, how do I edge the story closer to the tipping point without going over before the appointed time?
I do not currently have any answers to that, though I have certainly been puzzling over that for the last week or so. For the most part, I have been looking at the points I do know:
- new characters (with the circumstances leading to their introduction into this story)
- previous characters and how their relationships with each other affect things
- introduction proper for a race we haven’t dealt with (through official channels) prior to now
- aftermath of last book
- the antagonist, and what would likely be their chosen course of action based on what they’ve done in the past.
In some ways, it isn’t much to go on. In other ways, it does provide the building blocks of the plot… Hopefully. I currently have about 7.5 weeks to figure out where things are going with the new book. I’ve also got book 1 that I am revising to give to my beta readers. It should be an interesting couple months to say the least.
What method do you use to plot and write your books? How do you handle edits in your writing process? I would love to hear from you!
~ Theresa
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