Please don't tell me the rules. I'm more likely to follow them if i don't know what they are...

Finished my first draft of my YA novel outline and e-mailed it off to my agent. On different days i love/like/hate or loathe my new story. I was reading about plots this morning and became convinced I didn't have a plot. The writer (Nathan Bransford again at http://www.nathanbransford.blogspot.com/ ) talked about theme, hook and plot as individual yet essential elements that need to be in place before you beging writing. All the commenters on his blog waxed lyrical about how clear he'd explained it all but i just felt confused. Another of my favourite bloggers, Justine Larbalesteir, had only recently explained how she is an idiot savant writer who works without recourse to the acknowledged conventions of novel writing. Her stories just happen to come out like a bought one because her subconscious automatically follows the rules. I guess if you read a lot of books you can absorb the rules contained therein without even realising it. I like to think thats kind of how I work too. If i think too much about the rules the wheels fall off and i can't move forward. I wish Nathan Bransford hadn't said anything about plot.

On a cheerier note it looks like there will be another book by me out next year. Yay!! I guess it was kind of obvious it was going to happen, but any hint of doubt is a hint too much as far as i'm concerned. People say you need to come out with a book each year to stay current and keep your audience. That may not apply directly to me because i write for different age levels. I probably need to have at least one picture book and one novel a year. I'd better get cracking.

The indefinable factor...

I'm finally making a bit of progress with my outline. I have to say it makes the story seem very pedestrian. The novel itself is so much more dynamic with tension and drama but the outline is just blah. Is this how its meant to be? Its hard to make 'they have an argument' sound as tempestuous as the scene is in the novel. I'll finish up a first draft and fire it off to the agent tomorrow and see what she says.

I'm a bit divided over outlines. Its fantastic to have a clear idea of where i'm going with the story and how all the different bits fit together and play out and then tie up at the end. But on the flipside i find the whole concept a little like a straightjacket. When I begin I don't have every single element of the story sorted and I want to see what my characters do before i get over prescriptive about how they're going to end up. I also don't have the story properly broken down into chapters either. Chapter endings and beginnings tend to present themselves as I go along and at the moment I prefer this. Outline styles must differ depending on who is writing them so i will assume that I can do it my way within a broader framework.

I came across an interesting post today on Nathan Bransford's blog (Mr Bransford is an agent in San Francisco). While he's always looking for queriers who have followed the submission guidelines, are polite and professional with good grammar and have spelt his name right, there is always the indefinable factor that will get him to ask for more from the author. There are no rules or guidelines for this factor. No lessons available on how to 'do' it. The indefinable factor is different for different agents and different publishers and different readers. Its the same factor that makes you go wow or keeps you reading when you pick up a new book. If the book doesn't have it, you put it back on the booksellers shelf or the library shelf or where-ever. We don't like every book we see but someone at some stage saw something in the story that made them want to represent it or publish it or pick it up and buy it - or borrow it - and read it. I can't tell you how to put the indefinable factor into your story. For me I sometimes feel like it happens by magic. Sometimes the harder I reach for it, the more elusive it becomes. But if someone rejects your story and didn't see that indefinable factor, that doesn't mean the next person won't see it. One person's rejection is not the final word.

Waiting on some research

Someone's hammering on the roof next door. This is not conducive to writing. And I've hit a small hiccup with my writing because the scene i'm working on now needs some convincing trick bike riding lingo. I'm obviously not hip enough because when i tried to find some books to get out of the library to do some research on the topic i can't even find any. I don't know the right words for the search engine. I'll have to go in and do it manually. i'm waiting for the library to cough up Darkly Dreaming Dexter because after watching the Dexter tv series I'm hooked (despite the fact that he's an emotionless serial killer) and as tv series are never as good as the books they're based on i can't wait to read it. Can my trick bike riding scene wait until the book i've requested turns up? I'll give it a few days, keep my fingers crossed and see what happens. And then I'll probably end up making two trips anyway. My patience always runs out before the waited for object,event, reply arrives. You'd think I'd learn from this but no, my impatience is a demanding little thing.

I also need to do an outline for my new project to give to my agent so she can try and sell it for me. I have never met anyone who says outlines are easy to write. Darn. I'm so lazy i like easy things. I've made a few notes which roughly correspond to an outline which i'm pretty happy with but the strangest thing is i can't seem to do an outline for the bit I've already written. Turns out fiction is stranger than fiction too, along with the truth. if anyone has some outline writing tips (or wants to do it for me, she says optimistically) let me know.