entry the 3rd
9:34pm, central time zone
Saturday
alabama galaxy, outer huntsvegas, culdesac system, planet tatooine, wretched hive, walking carpet cantina, just woke up after sleeping for about twenty hours
Spam Count: 111
Hammered out a step-outline for Book One of my trilogy today. Came up with about 25 major scenes, which, according to Sensei McKee, is a little under half what a standard-length novel is supposed to have. That might be a good thing, though, as I'm informed that publishing houses love very-short manuscripts, especially from first-time authors.
The next step in The Process is called a "treatment". In a step-outline, you write a paragraph or so describing each major scene, where a scene is a turning point in the plot. In a treatment, you write a paragraph or so describing each "beat", where a beat is like a turn in a game of chess. The Main Characters make a new move, and the Forces of Antagonism make a move in response. Each beat sets up a new beat, just like each move in chess suggests a new response. Until someone achieves checkmate.
I was never all that great at chess, although I did have this one girl who rode the same bus as me in high school who said I looked like a Russian chess player before I started spiking my hair.
nose-bleedingly,
fiasco joe
"Size matters not. Judge me by my size, do you?"
-Frodo Baggins
Saturday, July 17, 2010
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1 comment:
Waiting patiently until your next post. Okay, that's a lie. I'm a pretty impatient person.
Thank you for writing, Joseph. Really, thank you.
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