Today is our last day with author Jonathan Friesen for summer panels, but you can sign up for his newsletter or email him on his website and also keep in touch with him through his Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Before he leaves, we have one more question for Jonathan:
Talk to us about outlining. Do you outline your books or discovery write them? Are you a hybrid?
Jonathan: I usually write a half-page narrative plan. It’s not much, but hey, it both gives me direction and leaves room for me to get lost along the way, something I consider to be essential when writing a good story. The narrative is short enough that I only get to include the most important aspects of the tale, which helps keep me focused. Now, I don’t get too excited about this brief summary. What gets me going is my other pre-writing exercise. Somebody gave me this idea, so maybe this won’t be new to anyone: I ask every main character to write a letter to every other main character. These letters are long, pages long. This is where I discover the unique voice of each character, and the feelings they hold toward other characters in the story. Nobody will ever criticize you for writing a simple story. But you can’t get away with writing stories in which all the voices sound the same. These letters help me create real, unique characters. That’s when I get excited.
Jill: That’s so interesting, Jonathan! I’ve never before heard of an author who had characters write letters to each other. I might have to try that sometime.
I’m a hybrid author. I start out with a list of scenes for each major point in the three-act structure. Then I write those on index cards, lay them out of the floor, and once I decide how long the book is going to be, I brainstorm scenes to fit in all the holes. When I’ve got a pretty decent plan, I stack up the cards and discovery write one card every day until I have a rough draft finished. Sometimes I have to pause to rearrange the cards or add new cards, but this process usually gets me a descent rough draft to work from.
Stephanie: I am a hybrid. I work best when I have a 2-3 page synopsis, and I start writing from that. Sometimes I outline an individual scene before I begin writing it. I have found that helps me to get the writing done faster.