New Novel

[hamletta]

I've started on the new novel. I was hoping to have a better outline before diving into it, but I feel like I need to get to know these people a bit better before I can add more details to the outline. What I'm doing now may just end up being exploratory, testing the voices of the characters and setting up the scenes. Even so, it will probably push me along faster than just staring at the outline of the outline.

I'm also experimenting with the outline function in Scrivener -- using colour-coding for pov tracks. It's more flexible than I thought (low benchmark, though, as I never really gave it a try). So far the only thing I don't like is the fact that the planned chapters (or index cards) appear as chapters of the manuscript in the binder. This will be super helpful once they are done and I want to shuffle things around, but until I then I prefer the binder to show only the things I've actually written.  I guess I can get used to it, or if not, I can always move the unwritten "chapters" into a folder within the manuscript.

Anyway. The first 1,000 done. Only 99,000 or so to go...

Comments

[yhlee]

Oh, congrats on the start! :D A journey of a thousand miles, and all that. :) Good luck!

[howsmyenglish]

Sounds fascinating! The thought of starting something so big frightens me (no wonder seeing as I've been writing my diss for years and years now), but it's like a new adventure... maybe i can learn to look at it this way..:)
Good luck! I hope it's fun (and not only struggle and feelings of insecurity)

[havocthecat]

I never thought to color-code chapters by POV, but that's a great idea. I should absolutely do that. Thank you!

[hamletta]

Oh, I love colour-coding -- something I brought from my screenwriting days. I used to just change icons in Scrivener binder (blue book, red boo, etc.) but now I discovered you can actually create custom labels, which allow you to colour-code the cork board and the outline, if you use these, and the scenes, chapters and everything else. So for example, I colour-coded descriptions of secondary characters which belong to each plot line so they are easier find when I need them! If you're interested in how to do it, here's a short instruction video from their site (it's for Mac, but I guess it will be similar if you're on windows -- and yes, it's a video ;) but I think it makes sense here as you can see it in action):
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/learn-and-support/video-tutorials/organising-10-tracking-threads-with-labels-and-the-corkboard?os=macOS