While I wait for my beta readers to read Fatemaker, I’ve been planning the sequel to Demonic Summoning for the Modern Woman. I’ve spent a lot of time the past two weeks staring off into space while I think, researching really weird things, and taking long walks while I sort out ideas.

I’ve learned a lot about planning a novel since I made my first, aborted (and truly dreadful) attempt at one. 

I’m definitely a planner, rather than a pantser when it comes to writing novels. I find writing the first draft difficult, and have learned that the better I plan, the easier the first draft is to write. I thought I had a pretty good system in place, but when I sat down to write Fatemaker I found my planning completely inadequate, because there were so many threads to draw together in the final book of an epic fantasy series. So I wrote a chapter by chapter plan of the book, summarising what had to occur in each chapter in order to wrap up everything by the end of the book. It probably took a week to create that summary, but by the end of the week, I had a detailed guide for my story, and I could focus on it chapter by chapter as I wrote, without worrying that I was forgetting something. I wrote the first draft in three weeks, rather than my usual six to eight weeks.

So I’m following the same process for the second book of the Rifton Chronicles, even though this book is not overly complex. Hopefully it will make the first draft fly onto the page.

My current planning process looks like this:

1. Develop the basic premise for a book.
2. Establish the world in which the story will take place. This includes creating a timeline of any historical events that impact on the story and details of any magic systems I’ll use.
3. Develop the characters who are best suited to be my protagonists and antagonists. This includes not only their personal background, but also their ancestry, relationships, strengths, weaknesses, and habits. I never concern myself with physical characteristics unless they have a direct bearing on the plot. If you asked me what my characters looks like, I couldn’t tell you.
4. Create a 1-page outline of the major plot points. Usually I do this in the form of a story mountain—yeah, primary school stuff, but it works for me. This outline includes key events—inciting incident, try-fail cycles, climax and conclusion, and puts them all on a specific timeline, so I know details like what season it is when I am writing.
5. Determine the story arcs of each of the main characters. Usually this is a couple of paragraphs per character, which I add to the character descriptions.
6. Write the blurb. I know this seems counterintuitive—how can you write the blurb before you’ve written the story? I used to struggle writing blurbs, because there were so many story details in my head, I didn’t know what to highlight in the blurb. The blurb needs to convey the genre, conflict, and just enough detail to hook readers into picking up the book. I’ve found it is MUCH easier to write this when that’s all I know about the book. When I’m not sick of the bloody story after weeks of writing, months of editing. When the story is still as shiny and new to me as it will be for potential readers. It also gives me a touchstone as I’m writing and editing—am I delivering what I said I would in the blurb? Is my story still conveying the awesome ideas I started off with?
7. Write a chapter by chapter summary of the story. I know my books tend to run about 30 chapters, so I divide the story into thirty chunks, then start placing the major plot points and filling in the details. When I did this for Fatemaker, I had a couple of blank chapters near the end, but also had the feeling some of the chapters were going to need to be split into two once I started writing. In the end, I had 34 chapters, so it deviated a bit from my plan, but only in volume, not substance. For the second Rifton Chronicles book, I know I will have six historical ‘interludes’, so I’ve spread these evenly through my chapters, and am building the modern part of the story between them.

Oh, yeah, and there’s the staring off into space, researching bizarre things, and taking walks—those are critical components of every step in the planning process.