Starting a New Story: the Basics

One of my favorite parts of any project is the very beginning. That moment where you have the first real spark of a new story, one that makes your heart race and sends you stumbling toward a pen and paper to get the idea down before it disappears. It’s a time full of possibility, and I love the sheer vastness and creativity we can explore in the beginning stage. Anything goes!

Now, I’m in the early stages of my fifth manuscript, codenamed Project Drake, a romventure (romantic adventure) that I’m already so excited about. Five stories in, and I still live for these moments.

While my writing process has become far more refined over the years through lots of trial and error, I’m still adjusting in my process. This is thanks to a few reasons: for one, my health isn’t as good as it was while writing previous manuscripts, and I’m working through the physical and mental tolls of chronic pain. It takes me more time to write now, I get tired more easily, and I have less energy to do, well, everything else. 

For another, I have an agent now and am on sub with one story, and I have another story (Project Midnight) that is far along in the revisions stage but isn’t ready for editor submissions yet. Some of you may even remember another adventure I wrote a couple years back, Project Flare, that I’m considering bringing back if the timing is right for it. I have more stories in the mix right now than ever before, and that’s a big change for me to keep things going smoothly on each project.

Last but not least, my writing process often depends on the time of year! My work in the games industry has a few major beats throughout the year that require more of my attention. For instance, the second half of May and the first half of June are *always* bonkers in the games industry, so I know right away that my goals need to be realistic as I approach this time of year.

There are other reasons that my writing process has changed, but these are the biggest contributions to it. That, and every story is different — Project Midnight was tougher for me to write, partially because of the onset of chronic pain, but also because I simply struggled with parts of the narrative more than my last book.

So while my process has evolved over time, there are certain things I always start with when beginning a new story:

• A brief logline: how can I describe the hook in 1-2 sentences, even just to myself?
• The comps: where do I see this book sitting on shelves? What authors do I think write similar stories and thus might have similar audiences to this one?
• The POV (point of view): do I see this story being written in first or third person? With one POV? Two? More than that?
• Early random plot points: What are some things I see being important to this story? What kind of journey do I see my main character(s) going on, and what’s driving them? Are there any other random ideas I want to jot down?
• Early name ideas: I start trying to come up with names fairly early so I can start to picture my main character(s). I throw them in a doc or notebook without worrying about them yet, just letting my mind go. I also often use baby name websites to get inspiration. Eventually, a name or two will stick, and I keep the rest for potential side characters.
• Brainstorming random locations: Where do I see this taking place? As I tend to write adventures, I have a lot of locations — what locations do I want to include, and why those choices?

Once I have this fairly messy brainstorming doc and can start loosely envisioning my main character(s) and their basic motivations, I start building things out more properly. For Project Drake, I’m currently building out the following sections:

• Sections about the main characters, including their physical attributes, the emotional wound that drives them deep down, their reason for this adventure, and a ton of character development questions (ex. Likes, dislikes, hobbies, things they’re terrible at, wealth status, how they dress and why)
• The Save the Cat! Writes a Novel Shard of Glass Exercise, answering who the hero is, their big problem or flaw, what they want at the start of the novel, and what they actually need. I’m also using The Emotional Wound Thesaurus from Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, which hugely helps me build these sections out and will be incredibly helpful throughout to reference throughout drafting and revisions.
• The Save the Cat Beat Sheet to make sure I’m hitting the major points of my novel

Once I have those mostly figured out, I’ll build out my outline, which at this stage is usually a 5-6 page, single-spaced doc that goes through Act 1-3 and incorporates the beat sheet. It’s pretty thorough, but it also leaves a lot of room for me to go off in other directions creatively when I get to drafting. I try not to be too rigid with following my outline, because I want to see where my creativity can take me.

This document also serves as the base of a synopsis (querying writers, your synopsis should be 1-2 pages max), which I share with my agent and a couple trusted early readers to make sure it looks decent before I begin drafting (ie, no gigantic plot holes or a terrible act 2 on the horizon). My agent has been excellent about pointing out areas that don’t quite make sense, or helping me push through early plot issues. 

In the past, I skipped the character sections and beat sheet until after my first draft was complete, but this time I’m seeing if doing them early will be better for my process. It’s also way easier for me to work on these docs right now while I wait for agent edits on Project Midnight, versus jumping head-first into drafting a new story.

After I have everything ready and my agent has reviewed the synopsis, I’ll go back and make any changes to my materials before I begin drafting. After the first draft is complete, I usually make a master doc on Google Sheets where I start breaking down each chapter and scene in greater depth to better see what’s working, what’s not and either needs to be changed or scrapped, and what’s missing. I’m guessing I’ll probably do that with Project Drake when I get to that point, but right now, I’m focusing on the task at hand.

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know I’ve done 30-day first drafts of my last three manuscripts. I LOVE this process, but now that I have a chronic illness, I may have to adjust this a little to make sure I’m taking care of myself. Ultimately, I want to learn from what’s worked (and what hasn’t) in the past and adjust for the writer I am now, instead of rigidly sticking to something simply because it’s worked before.

I’m not exactly sure when I’ll begin drafting, but I expect it’ll be sometime in the next month or two. I’m eager to get moving, but with some big travel coming up and other projects in the fire, I’m playing it as smart as I can.

…Even if I may end up sneaking in some early drafting!

Sending strawberry tarts,
Valerie

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