Seven, you say? What in the name of word processors took you so long?
Book One: The Problem Child
Well, the first book took me about six years to write. I'm sort of grateful for that, because it took time to build the characters, their quirks, and their world. Since these books are not (yet) bound to a publisher, I have the luxury of time to "marinate" everything. This is A Good Thing. Book One began in 2012 with an idea, which then became A Character and His Problems, which then acquired a writing soundtrack and a planning style that was, at the time, new to me: storyboarding. Storyboarding is what screenwriters do to map out a movie. It divides the story structure into three acts. This loose structure appealed to my hybrid pantser-plotter heart. I could change things and move them around, which I did, to best fit my story. I fitted out the corkboard in my office with string to separate it into four sections, which I then filled with index cards for scenes and plot points. (Check out Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Highly recommended for those who enjoy movies and who also write fiction.) I gave myself a goal of one page per day, often exceeding that, but it was tough going, nonetheless.
Book Two: The Independent Child
Storyboarding did not work for Book Two. I began this one about a month after finishing the first book, fresh off the success of reaching The End. That was around a year ago, but I'm already more than halfway through the book, which is more than I could say for Book One. This book, however, has a mind of its own. While I do have a writing soundtrack, and most of the characters already existed, it simply refused to bow to storyboarding. I had to come up with a new way to "plot" the structure, while leaving my pantser side enough room to play and stay intrigued with the story. This led to link diagramming, which I discovered through a friend who uses the writing program Inspiration. This is a study tool tailored to visual thinkers, and offers multiple ways to lay out of a project. They refer to link diagrams as "webbing," a visual way to show how different parts of a concept are related to one another. I tend to be a hands-on thinker. The physical corkboard and index cards in my office present a more useful way to map a storyline than something only accessible via computer. While I don't use the software, it did offer me a different way to plot a book that keeps my pantser-plotter brain happy. My corkboard now looks like something out of a crime drama, with cards all over the board, color-coded, minus the red yarn that would connect everything. Book Two likes a minimum of 100 words per day, and usually goes well over that.
Whatever Works
Moral of the story? Finish the damn book, however you can. You can write with or without music, with or without a plot, storyboard or link diagram or fully outline. What you can't do in trying to finish a book is not write. Anything else that gets you to The End is fair game. I have done all of these things in the process of writing nine and a half books, and none of them is wrong. If you are a writer, just write, using whatever method helps you, and know that the method can change from book to book. Happy Writing!
