Three Weeks - Novel Outline - Day 1
Book Outlining, My Projects, Writing Fiction July 9th, 2008
Today I began work on my second novel outline of the summer - for a humorous piece I’m calling Three Weeks.
When I detailed my progress on the previous novel outline (which I’ll finish cleaning up on Saturday), I didn’t give many details about the actual story. I’ll still be somewhat vague here (not so much to protect ideas, but more because the ideas constantly morph during the outline process - what I have in mind now may very well not be what I end up with when it gets down to details).
For this outline, I’m using the worksheets and plan in Book in a Month. I won’t be following it exactly due to the nature of this novel (which is broken down into 15 separate stories), but altering it to fit my needs for this project. Either way, it’s another 30-day outline program I’m testing out (to compare with the previous one). I may work 30 consecutive days on it, or I may take a short break here and there, but either way, 30 working days and this outline should be ready to be used in a solid draft.
Background on Three Weeks
One of the best things about this book, especially compared to the last, is that it won’t require a lot of research. There are a lot of autobiographical elements (not quite, but we’ll get to that), and a lot of common sense.
The book involves a young single woman on the verge of turning 30. She’s alone, frustrated by that fact, worried about the stigma attached to single women over 30 (despite the claim of some that “40 is the new 30″), and she’s looking back on past relationships.
She notes that a lot of “relationships” only lasted a few weeks before things went sour - where her interest or her partner’s interest diminished. Obviously we’re not talking about serious relationships here, but rather the fleeting kind; the “learning experiences” that most of us go through at least a few times in our life.
The book will go from introducing her and setting a somewhat lighthearted and cynical (yet hopful) tone to 15 separate stories of relationships-gone-bad - each within a period of three weeks. The reminiscing is a means for her to explore how these relationships have changed her ; helped her become who she is “today.”
Each relationship will focus on one specific “type” of man that we may or may have not experienced for ourselves - from the “bad boy” types to mama’s boys to the brainy types, and how relationship problems are both similar and varied no matter what “type” of person you’re with.
The stereotypes will be exaggerated of course, given that we’ll be going for humour here. Essentially, it’s a story of self-discovery and realizing that hindsight isn’t necessarily always 20-20.
The Personal Side
A lot of character elements of my protagonist will mirror my own life. Being that this kind of story can take place anywhere and to anyone, geographically it’s going to occur in places I’m familiar with (figure the Philadelphia area for the most part).
While I won’t be basing any of the men directly on my own exes or others that I know, I will be pulling inspiration from my own past relationships - little things that were done or said for example which didn’t seem terribly amusing then, but which are quite funny looking back.
I was also the “den mother” type with my friends growing up - the one everyone came to with guy problems or when they needed relationship advice. So I have plenty of horror stories mulling around in my head regarding broken hearts and damaged egos. They’re all going to help me in developing these 15 three-week relationships.
All of this “real life” experience will save a huge amount of time on research, which is one of the reasons I ultimately opted to go with this story before the other dark novel concept.
The Progress
Today was Day 1 of the program. I had to write a one-sentence story summary, and a short story idea map. Both were done with no problems, and it feels nice to have something actually on paper (well, on index cards technically).
Last night I went through and put together all of my note cards / worksheets for the first 10 days, which will make life easier as I move along.
Tomorrow I already break a little bit from the novel outline plan in the book. It suggests creating 10 scene cards for primary scenes in the story.
Given the setup of this book, I’m going to have more work to do, which may very well put me a bit behind schedule early on (but this program has days with time specifically for catching up, so I’m not worried about it).
I’ll share some more details tomorrow about how I’m deviating a bit from the 10 scene card plan.
