Writer Wander 015 - The Outline is FINISHED!!!

Wander finished outlining his novel! Where does Writer Wander go from here?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Writer wonder fifteen. The outline is finally finished, right? And I have to say, um it's always interesting writing the outline for a novel or a story because when you do it, it's almost like you're going through the entire beats of the narrative. Well, no, that it's not like you're almost doing it. That's literally what you're doing. You're going through all the beats of a given narrative or a given story, and in the process of doing that, you're sort of like living through all of the experiences that your characters go through at an accelerated rate, because obviously the outline contains all the events or most of the major events in the story, uh, but with less detail because obviously it's just a question of you know helping you structure things and and be able to look at things better, right? But uh, you know, it's roughly the same thing, right? Especially when you're thinking through things, right? One of the things that outliners in particular have to deal with is that a lot of times we we're sort of hard on ourselves because we we think, oh man, the outlining process is very rough. That must mean I'm a crappy writer, because if I can't even get the outline done, then who's to say about the novel? There's some truth to that, but we have to cut ourselves a little bit of slack because when we're outlining, it is not too different from the hardest parts of doing a novel, right? The hardest parts of writing down a novel as opposed to is not you know just the the actual little writing stuff down part, right? The stuff that actually causes writer's block is when you don't have an idea of the structure that your story is going for, right? When you don't have that notion of where your story is headed, when you lack that and you have to like build that, then it's always difficult. And this happens in the drafting process and the outlining process. The only difference is that in the drafting process, you also have a lot of description and a lot of you know um cool things you might get to, you know, again, describe in detail, a lot of description and and execution, but the hard part is basically always the same. The thing that always causes headaches is like, hmm, is this a smart point in the story to put the thing that I want to do, or should I leave it for later, or should I just not bother doing it at all, right? So those are the kind of things that that really cause difficulty in the novel, and why I like being a planner or outliner, though obviously no one is fully planner or fully outliner, though I lean that way, but the reason I like this style more so than just seat of the pantsing is that you know I'm the kind of guy that I I I like to execute the drafting process as quickly as possible, right? Not because I feel like I'm on a time limit, but I personally I don't know if it was Stephen King that said it, but uh I do agree with him. I feel that at least for me, if you spend like more than three months on a story or on a draft, you do kind of start losing the plot, at least for me. Feels that way. You kind of have to like you know go quickly while you have that fresh idea of what the story you want to be is, and you kind of have to you have to grab it, and that's also problems that I've had before when I've written the outline for something and I've waited way too long to actually get down to writing it, and nothing happens, obviously. Um but yeah, those those are those are just things to to consider, you know. But yeah, the outline. Um I know all the major beats of how this story is gonna come out, and I guess just you know, summarizing everything, you know, bringing a quick summary of all the things we've talked about on this podcast. I am writing a novel called Echoes of Heroes, and it is a fantasy novel explicitly designed to be classical in its tone, in its action, and uh in its structure and resolution. Its biggest inspirations are the Hobbit and obviously classic fantasy and the the the epic tone of the Lord of the Rings, specifically the fourth age of the of the Lord of the Rings, uh Lodas, and uh you know obviously there's gonna be some some Dragonlance and what else? It's a good really just it's an homage in general to specifically classic fantasy, but I think that the biggest inspiration really is the Hobbit because from a structural standpoint, one of the things that attracted me to wanting to write a book like this was the format that I chose, which which I call the Odyssey format, in which you can think of the book as like a sandwich. What makes a sandwich a sandwich? Well, at the end of the day, what makes a sandwich a sandwich is the top bun and the bottom bun. But all the stuff you put in the middle, whether you put bacon, chicken, um, lettuce, arugula, some sauce or or whatever, all of that is more or less optional to making the sandwich a sandwich. So an Odyssey structure is kind of like that. You know, the story in you know, in terms of like the plot dependence of the story, most of the middle parts of the story, that is to say, everything between the beginning and the end, most of those things are episodic, roughly episodic in their in their nature, right? And it's a very fun format to play with because as I said way at the beginning of this podcast, I was drafting a version of this same story that was a lot darker, a lot more plot-heavy, and had a much more intricate plot. And that version of the story was interesting in its own right, but it got to a point where you have all of these complicated threads and you know, all of these difficult ideas and these difficult structures that you have to get together, that you know, it was getting very tiresome constantly having to think for a character's motivation to do something, or a character's motivation to you know to get something done, right? And what's freeing about the Odyssey structure is that since much of the stories in the middle are episodic and are not interconnected, I have a lot of flexibility and an easier time thinking of motivations for characters because oftentimes, at least for this book, the plot structure makes it so that characters don't need to have a bunch of like continuous uh development across the whole story because a lot, a lot, large portions of the story are independent from from one another, right? And you could sort of reorder them and and you can chronologically they they take place in a given sequence, obviously, but from a story impact perspective, uh, in theory, I could get rid of some of those incidents in the middle and still and still get the same overall overall plot. And honestly, I recommend this for anyone if you are a person who has struggled to write a novel in the past, I think that this is a very good structure to take because part of the difficulty in writing a novel is that once you're 10 chapters in, you start to have to account for a lot of information that initially, even if you made an outline, you might not have imagined crisscrossing, right? But with the Odyssey structure, if you write a story in the Odyssey structure, that problem is still there, but it's a lot more minimal. It's a lot more minimal because again, there's a there's an independence that exists between the different arcs in the story, and that can be very freeing and very fun. And that's another thing that I've reflected on a lot in the process of writing this novel, right? I feel that a lot of people, when they think of their story or the kind of tale that they want to tell, they often think of what are ways that I can make my story unique or or different from from other stories. And oftentimes the temptation is to think in terms of content. Hmm, I have this new fantasy race that isn't present in any other in any other story, or hmm, I have this cool magic system that's very unique to my story, and you find won't find it anywhere else. Or, hmm, I have this very unique kind of villain that has a very unique motivation or or whatever. And what I don't often see in the fantasy genre, which is very strange because you do see this in other genres like traditional, you know, literary fiction, what you don't often see is this similar attitude taken toward the prospect of playing around with different ways to structure your story. And one thing that I've learned from outlining Echoes of Heroes is that oftentimes the way in which you structure the story, the way in which you put the puzzle pieces together, is often just as, if not more, interesting than the actual puzzle pieces themselves. Like I said before, and the world that I designed for Echoes of Heroes on purpose, it is a world that at least as far as it is currently developed, obviously things will change as I actually write, but as far as it is currently developed, I kept the world building light, and from you know, for if you just glance at it, it might just look like, oh, another generic fantasy setting, right? And you know, the main differentiator thematically is that it takes place after the big bad is destroyed, and it's a very it's a it's a world that is tonally and spiritually within the fourth age. That is to say, the age after the great evil is destroyed, and you're sort of looking at the different consequences of all the things that have happened in the setting. However, I think that you know more than that, what really does make my story stand out is the Odyssey structure, because I don't think that's a structure that's very common in a lot of modern epic fantasy. A lot of modern epic fantasy tends to favor, you know, these very intricate, super cool plots that are you know increasing in scale. And who knows, maybe for the second book in this series I will take on that more traditional um structure uh so as to see how things go that way to keep developing the plot because uh you know that's one of the things I will probably struggle with in the future, which is I don't know how epic the scale of this story should be after the first volume, right? Because on the one hand, I like telling epic stories, and in some sense, this is an epic fantasy novel, but on the other hand, uh one of the things that makes this world unique is is just that fact that you know that epic scale is not there. You're sort of you're just living in the aftermath of all of that, and I guess one of the problems I'm gonna have to grapple with later on is to what extent do I do I want to sort of resurrect the old demons that haunt this world? Because one of the things I was also thinking about is that I could make like a traditional sequel in which this, you know, this story that started as a an Odyssey-like story expands into a more traditional plot line. Or, and this is an idea that I've been toying around with a bit, is that you know, instead of like focusing on a particular plot art for the entire series, I will have the entire series, but the series will each book with some exceptions might focus on like different adventures or different characters that are doing things in this uh in this world, and perhaps I will periodically return to the other characters that I've established. So maybe the next book will not be about Finnegan, and it won't even resume with the with the expedition that is going on. Maybe that's gonna be covered in a later book, and maybe the second book is really gonna be dealing with um another character like Karalder, who's the Zvanished warrior. What was he up to in in Svenguard? What kind of things was he doing, or maybe someone he knows, or some other person. I also wrote notes for this other character who is what I call an elven thought child, because in this setting, elves obviously I've mentioned before that the elves are fading, that they're already in that era where most of them have left the main setting to go to the west. However, um it I thought it interesting to have like a plot line where you know it the let the youngest elf that is the youngest elf, they're plot their POV, right? Because it's very interesting. You're the youngest member of a dying race, and the way that my setting works is this idea of a thought child, which is elves do not have um they don't have intercourse the way that normal humans do, right? Since elves are transcendental and almost divine figures in some way, which which echoes a lot of Tolkienian elves, uh I thought that this the idea is that the way that elven reproduction works is that it is a once-in-a-lifetime and very very rare event that often that are is often spaced out between centuries, in which two elven lovers come together and they sort of manifest into reality a fully formed human being through a union of their of their thoughts, and so they they expand through their own thoughts, and obviously this is a laborious process, and it can only be done by people who are fundamentally soulmates and quite literally meant for one another. And since the elves are fading, then this character is the youngest elf here because again, uh, thought children don't often emerge, which is why the elven population is so is so low in this setting and in most fantasy settings, but I this is part of the explanation for me that elves cannot naturally reproduce, they have this thought children process, right? And you know, it would be cool to see a perspective like that. And I guess I'll just go quickly over everything that's happened, you know. Finnegan, who's the main character of Echoes of Heroes, he's looking for his brother, but more than looking for his brother, he's looking for his own call to adventure. He feels that he has a good life where he is, but he's called for something more. And he gets news of this expedition from Kenem, who's an old friend of his, and is also secretly one of the companions called Talison. And they will go on a quest to go to a city called Paragos, in which there is a massive expedition. And the first plot beat involves them getting waylaid by pirates and getting kidnapped into the pirate stronghold, where along the way they meet up with a Norse Northmen from a land called Svengard called Haraldur and his dwarven companion Tosted. And then afterward, after they escape the pirates, there they will they will change paths, and then Finn and Ken will head toward a land called Fergus, from which um they hope to visit one of the elven citadels because one of the things that Ken wants to do is that he wants to catch up with some of his old companions to you know sort of get a broader idea of how the world is is moving. I guess I'll I'll develop that more once I actually uh get into it. And when they arrive at Firgus, which is a city that is on the way to this elven citadel of Ilaris, they'll meet up with this other cast of characters, which includes a saintly woman that is hiding a dark secret, a knight that fell in love with her at first sight, and her helper, ladies' helper. And eventually they will go to the elven citadel, and then they will go on another quest to another elven citadel from there to try and fix the questionable behavior of another elf lord that is in that citadel. However, as will happen, is that and this is I guess somewhat of a controversial decision, is that I I'm going to make it so that they abandon that quest because they and I think that's something you know I'll have to see how it works because I don't know of a lot of stories that have done something like this, but you know, the having the characters like not just fail, because there are characters who fail in fiction all the time, but aside from failing, like they failed a main quest, and they have to go back, and that's part of the things I'm gonna go to because as they're going into the domain of this other elf that has apparently turned to darkness, they get ambushed, and Finn uh Lady Ostris, who's like this saintly woman, and her com uh her companion Reese, uh, they get stuck, uh they get separated from the main group after they're ambushed, and they stumble into these ruins while they're seeking an escape, and they find something evil in those ruins, and Lady Ostris exercises that evil, but something in that evil sort of takes takes hold of her, right? And uh Oswald also got separated, and basically, since that evil thing took hold of her, she quite literally walks into the darkness of the ruins, which expands into a prof a deep underground network of of caverns, and Oswald, since he's so deeply in love with her, he he follows her, and then Finnegan and and Reese, who's the companion, they have to leave her behind, and then they meet they go meet back up with the old old group, but those those characters, Oswald and uh Lady Astris, at least in in this version of the story, which is still in outline form, who knows what will happen once I get that to writing, but in this version, they do not they are not found again in this story, and I think that's cool. I think that's it's cool that you have like just you know these characters that they just disappear and you don't necessarily get closure about them in this in this volume. And the idea that after that the characters go back to the first citadel because they're like, Man, I can't do this quest. You know, this lady, this holy lady that was supposed to be the one who did the thing that we were looking to do. Well, she's gone now, so we can't do it. So afterward, the characters continue to Finn, um Ken and the Reese, the companion, who they managed to convince to accompany them, they head over to Paragost. And um, there are things that happen in between, but you know, uh the main thing is that they go to Paragost, and once they arrive there, um Finn is treated to an audience with High Lord Sigismund Moonbane, and among that audience he notices a red-headed family in that audience, which is very strange because the only place in this journey that, you know, redheads are quite common is Nomak, where Finn is from. And he asks these children about them, and you know, through a series of incidents that will be developed later on, he finds out that those children are the sons of his and daughters of his brother who has gone missing into the frontier where the expedition is going. And you know, I'm gonna leave the story there. I was you know, and uh I think that's a good place to leave this first this first volume. There's a lot of risky things I'm doing here. I'm I'm leaving a lot of threads loose, but at the same time, I don't want this to feel like a cliffhanger ending, and I think that part of why this will not be a cliffhanger ending is because even though there's a lot of threads loose, the main motivation behind the story was just to get to Paragost. Obviously, there were Finn wants to know the whereabouts of his brother, but that's not even the main purpose of the of the plot. The main purpose of the plot is just to enjoy the the journey of arriving at at Paragost, right? To enjoy that journey. And you know what kind of things you find on the on the road. And I think that in that respect, uh, it did reach a satisfying conclusion in that they did arrive at Paragos. The story does end there and the expedition is is on its way and they were able to meet up once more with a lot of old old comrades. And you know maybe by the time I get done writing I might add even more pit stops. But for now, I feel this is a good place to leave things, right? And you know, I'm I'm looking forward to start writing. It's a good sign that I'm still I still feel that excitement to start writing. And you know even though it's only been like 15 episodes uh of this podcast I think that now we will start to get into a lot of the actual pain that comes in the the moment to moment process of of writing. But I think I'm probably gonna space it out a bit usually what I like to do is that I I like to wait a week. I like to wait until the next weekend uh right now it is sunday and uh so I might wait until the next weekend so that I can have a good start on this on this novel on this story and then uh you know we will begin the actual phase of writing in the Rider Wander podcast. So Rider Wander signing out of the