Posts

Showing posts from March 11, 2009

A Simple Book Outline

My first attempt at writing a novel didn’t have an outline. I had several scenes in my head that I wrote with the idea that I would fill in the gaps later. The story was a fantasy about two friends, one of which had an innate ability to work magic and decided to put the people to work building a huge tower from which he intended to rule the world, or something like that. I reached 60,000 words before my hard drive crashed. I’m sure I still have bits and pieces of the story somewhere. I could put it back together again, but I think it best if I don’t. I began Searching for Mom in the same way, but I quickly realized that I was wasting too much time writing stuff that I didn’t need to write. I developed the most basic of outlines. It began like this: Beginning – Sara Wants a Mother Middle – Sara Looks for a Mother End – Sara Brings Mother and Father Together After looking around, I happened to find someone who made the suggestion, “push to the middle.” I don’t recall where I saw that ad...