More Stuff Here

My post-it note outline for Cold Blooded is going pretty well. I've been having ideas, filling in blanks, figuring shit out. It's also making me a bit nervous.

There are points at which Des' new human friends find out what he is (a vampire, if you're just joining us). The first (friend A) was a few scenes before the midpoint, and the second (friend B) was at the midpoint. I moved friend A's discovery a little later, to the midpoint. Then what about friend B? Oh, I moved that a quarter of the book earlier to the First Plot Point.

And this concerns me. Like this plot is a precarious Jenga tower and if I move the wrong piece, the whole thing is going to come crashing down. I had briefly considered Friend B not finding out at all, and now I pull this shit? What am I doing?

That is the advantage of outlining, though. I can lay out all the plot pieces and see how they fit before I actually take the time to write scenes. Right now I have 30 scenes and 4 scene placeholders that say MORE STUFF HERE so I know that I need more scenes between two existing scenes. This might seem like progress. Except I need about eighty scenes total.

And that's totally my own fault. I tend to write very short scenes. If they were longer, I wouldn't need so many. Maybe if I started describing things…

As it stands right now, I have a lot of things in Act 1. A lot of introductions and setup. Great. Then I have fewer things in Act 2. I have the major plot beats, but a lot of blank space in between. Then in Act 3, I have the beginning (the Dark Night of the Soul) and the end (the Climactic Moment). I have no idea what happens in between.

I've actually cut several scenes that had survived up until pretty recently.

One was the whole TastyTV subplot, where a Food Network style of show profiles the Creamatorium. I was trying to write it, and it was frankly kind of boring, and tonally just didn't seem to fit. So I got rid of it.

Then there was a scene referred to as "The Capri-Sun Incident" that immediately followed the 1st Plot Point, that I rather enjoyed. But I've decided to change how that part goes, so it no longer makes sense.

That's really what it means to "kill your darlings." And while, yes, I am also a fan of killing off characters, that's not really what it means. It means those words, lines, and chapters that just aren't working in the story. Maybe they're unclear, or unnecessary. Maybe they're the author just showing off how smart they are for the sake of it. But if they're not serving the story, they have to go.

So I killed the Capri-Sun Incident. Even though I liked it. It was kind of gross and kind of funny, but it didn't fit anymore and it dragged on too long. I've replaced it with conflict and stakes and questions of who to trust, with something that propels the plot along. It's for the best.

Now if I could just fill in the blanks in the other 3/4 of the book, I'd be golden.

I'll see you next time.