SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

It’s about time I did a writing update. I got out of the habit of doing updates, and I suppose the time away made it a wee bit daunting. But here I am, braving the blank blog page.

A while back, I decided I needed a break from pre-editing Working the Asset (Deniable Unit #1). The story still excites me, but there’s something not quite right about it. A bit of time away and a good hard look at the structure will fix it when I get back to it. Of that, I’m certain.

So, what have I been spending my time doing? Besides a significant declutter, dealing with injuries/illnesses–my own and Jez’s–and going yarn daft, I took a story structure course to up my outlining skills. 

A Fear of Pants

Part of that course is to work on a story to get it to the point of drafting (writing). I wasn’t ready to tinker with Working the Asset, so I chose to work on Kelvin and Amy’s story. You see, I fell in love with their characters while doing my (on hiatus) Genre Scribes challenge, but I hated pantsing* their story.

*Pantsing is writing without much in the way of planning/outlining/plotting beforehand because they instinctively know the story. Enthusiasts are known as Pansters as they write by the seat of their pants.

Pantsing, or writing into the dark, is not my idea of fun. I’m a plotter. I need the light illuminating the route ahead; I need to know what will happen before I write a draft. And more than that, I really, really, need to know that it’s logical and fulfils my promise of a roller-coaster ride to readers before I get the words on the page—hence the intensive pre-editing I do.

Friday Freakouts

Not knowing the path ahead for Kelvin and Amy’s story was, let’s say, problematic. If you’re imagining me pulling my hair out and rocking in the corner while mumbling something about plot holes, I’m not going to deny it. That’s close to how Friday’s used to look for me. Each week there was a growing probability I’d write myself into a plot hole or seventeen that would take an enormous amount of work to rescue the story from.

The Update… and a Shoutout for Working the Asset

So far, I’ve completed the course—woohoo!—and am now halfway through the outline for Kelvin and Amy’s story. FYI: their story is called Out in the Cold and will be a Deniable Unit short novel.

Once the outline for Out in the Cold is complete, I’ll be diving back into Working the Asset. 

Working the Asset’s outline is so close to done that I’m chomping at the bit to get to the writing. I can’t wait to share Adam and Elle’s story. It’s filled with all the story elements I love to experience while I read: action-adventure, a sarcastic hero, a heroine with a smart mouth, a bad guy who’s so sure he’s in the right, and an attraction so hot it’ll burn the fingers off you.

Did I mention that I’m really excited about this story?

Future Update Posts

I plan on doing more regular update posts for my writing. Instead of just a “this is what I got done” post, I will share my author journal: weekly goals, review of the previous week, what worked, what didn’t work. Don’t worry; the posts are super-short. Not only are the journal posts highly motivational (for me, at least), but they are also easily adaptable to almost any life goal and could help you get closer to your own dreams.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by! Stay safe.