Okay, I'm going to be using the story's title "The Rub" in this post and I just want you to get all your giggles out now before I say "rub" over and over. Also, if the font changes size sporadically, I apologize. I'm not sorry enough to fix it, but I am sorry.
-The Question of The Day-
As an author, I get asked a lot about the writing process. Friends and family-including my dear mother-have asked how I write "big picture". Like, if I have my endings planned out or if I just come up with plot as I go. And I think that's a good question whether or not you want to get into writing.
So, that's what I'm going to answer today.
-The Skeleton-
Typically, I start with a skeleton. A "skeleton" is a short description of a chapter, or a list of things that have to happen in that chapter. I lay out the skeleton-let's say it's a ten chapter short story-and I sort of refine it over and over to make sure it contains all the important and relevant information that needs to be in the book.
Even something small that pays off. Like, if a character needs a paperclip to reset an alarm or something, I could leave a note in an earlier chapter saying "X character plays with a paperclip while having a conversation". This also helps me as a writer and as a person with some undiagnosed attention problems. I see a note like that and I remember, "Oh, right the paperclip bit".
But hey, let's stop telling and start showing! The following is a segment of the skeleton for my story "The Rub" from "A2F Vol. 3; Morai, More Problems".
C1. The Three Apples
MC meets Agents while investigating a dead young adult. They were a stunt performer who died doing a big stunt. The guy’s father is disinterested and more interested in starting a charity in his dead son’s name, but the mother wants the death investigated, selling out her own husband to MC and keeping the payment a secret.
C2. The Ensorcelled Prince
MC and Agents investigate the rich father. The old man has a clean rep, but info given by the wife makes it clear the two of them had medical issues with childbirth. The son was actually adopted as a toddler from a poor family. This leads MC to find continued interest in adoption turning into a secret interest in children on behalf of the husband.
Okay, so we can see a few concepts floating around here. There is are some investigator characters, a rich, young victim, and some mourning parents with some dirty laundry.
Now, let's see how it looks in the book. I have a link here to Chapter 2 of "The Rub" that we can compare to the first two chapters of my skeleton.
-The Results-
So, as expected, there is some difference between the skeleton and the finished version. Some information pulled from one chapter into another, some information saved for a later chapter, but all the important beats kept in place. The characters, the topic of discussion, and the setting are all kept intact.
The biggest difference you can convey with the finished version of Chapter 2 are things like the tone and the personalities. These are elements that are important to the overall story, but not necessary to hammer out or preplan when making the skeleton of the story.
The skeleton is an essential part of my writing process. It's a guide, it's a crutch, and it's a parachute. I can get mixed up in how a character acts or feels, I can go back and forth on a critical conversation, I can mess up a fight scene, but I never lose track of my story when I have a skeleton to look back on. It's the backbone that supports all the meat and makeup. Hopefully, if you want to write, a skeleton can help you make that story a reality.
Thank you for reading!
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