Predetermination

My new book project, Wrath of Empire, is throwing up some writing challenges that are entirely new to me.

People tend to work somewhere on the spectrum between plotting and pantsing – writing by the seat of your pants. At one extreme, some writers will map absolutely everything out – what goes into each chapter and scene – into a detailed outline before they write a word. At the other extreme, some writers literally start writing and see where the story leads them, and plough their way through until they reach a conclusion.

Most writers sit somewhere in between, and I believe that how you go about writing a novel is not a neat linear spectrum between plotting and pantsing, but a whole landscape of possible methods.

In my case, I often start with no clear idea of where the story is headed (classic pantsing) but very soon I need to start adding some structure and direction (a high level plot outline). I then flip between manuscript and outline, and the two feed off each other.

Once I have an outline, my writing isn’t linear. Whenever I get bogged down in one part, I’ll leap ahead to an interesting scene further on, then come back and fill in the gaps. At the same time, the outline itself isn’t solid. All my novels so far have ended up taking very different paths from how I initially envisioned them.

And that’s where I’m finding things challenging this time around.

Wrath of Empire is a prequel. It tells the story of events that are mentioned in Ghosts of Innocence, so the broadest outline of the story has already been determined. And those landmark events can’t be changed.

I still have to flesh out a lot of details and bring them to life with a whole cast of characters and scenes that I haven’t begun to map out, but this time I can’t let the story take me any old where. It has to hit those landmarks on schedule.