Breakthrough

The breakthrough I had last week really helped me move forward with my outline. I concentrated on what was happening with the villain's perspective. I started with what was going on behind the actions he had already taken within what I had already written and also moved his plans forward, which really helps me add complications for Dakota in the next part of the book.

I also made plans to change some things within what was already written to tighten things up. By tightening up what I really mean is connecting more things together. Whatever I can do to make elements of the plot and different characters overlap and weave together makes the story that much better, in my opinion.

So I have what the villain is doing mapped out, but not much about what Dakota will be doing beyond some broad threads. Next step: break these broad threads into possible scenes. Once I do that I can move them around and see what order seems to work best and weaves everything together the best way. I can also look if there are any that can serve double duty (be combined into one scene instead of two). Scrivener is a great tool for this.

Finally, once November rolls around next week, I can actually start writing the scenes. Actually I could start writing now since I'm not starting at the beginning of a story--as long as I don't count the words toward my nanowrimo total--but I want to save the wordcount for November so I can get as close to 50k as possible, so even if the book doesn't end up being 100k, I'll still be in pretty good shape to win.