Roadmapping

While I'm letting the stories and whatnot I've been working on for the past month stew and get a little distance on them, I've been going back over 2009's NaNo. I'm pleasantly surprised by it (this being the first time I've read the whole thing through from the beginning). Sure, there's plenty of work to be done, but it's not headdeskingly bad. There is hope!

Of course, before I can do anything serious editing-wise, I need to finish the sucker. Unfortunately, as I got to the end, I realized why I lost steam in the first place: I had no idea what the next scene should be. Not a good start.

Fortunately, I have a few things to try. Option one: outline. Yeah, I know, that's usually something you hear people doing before they start writing. Well, if that's what works for them, that's great. I've tried it before. Snowflaked my first NaNo novel back in 2006. Still need to finish that novel, actually, whenever I swing back to high fantasy mode and feel like trudging through one giant mess of prose. While I never had to think about what came next, I also wrote on autopilot... which meant I didn't realize things were getting horribly horribly tangled until the very last major plotpoint. There is going to be a lot of major restructuring in that one.

No, this time, I'm using the outline to track where I've been and hopefully see what needs to be the next scene. I'm mapping out POVs and the three main plotlines while I'm at it, and I won't be outlining any further than I've already written. I'm using it as a chance to keep all those little threads from getting hopelessly snarled and back into a nice, neat braid again. Really, all I'm looking for is a next step.

I'll let you know how it works out.