A month ago, I said I was going to try my hand at outlining the fourth thriller book in the Central Division Series. It went well, brainstorming the beginning, middle, and end, and a lot of pieces in between.
But after two days, I was itching to just start writing the book, because that's the way I roll.
What brought about this urging for me to outline?
I discovered a new podcast a few months ago called the Story Grid Podcast with Shawn Coyne and Tim Grahl. When I started listening, I knew I had to listen to them all. And I highly recommend it, if you want a new sense of storytelling and why some stories work and many don't.
Shawn Coyne has been an editor for over twenty-five years and wrote a book called the Story Grid. Check it out. It's well worth the investment, no matter what genre you write.
In a number of the podcast episodes, Shawn suggested not necessarily planning out one's day in word count but in writing a specific scene or two. The scene or two may take up the word count you need for the day, but it's a different mindset to have, looking at it by scene instead of words.
With my new book, I decided to take this approach. After the day's writing, I would plan out the next scenes. It's still early in the process, but it seems to be working well.
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