Project Transformation Part Nine - Return Flight

I've enjoyed this holiday. I've read a bit, worked on the main project a bit, did a lot of non-book related activities. But I also did another book related activity. Like any sane writer with two manuscripts on the go, I started working on another idea. 

Now I'm saying NOTHING about this one. If Project Transformation is playing with the idea of accountability, NOTHING is playing with the idea about keeping a story in and forcing it out. But I can tell you a little about how I'm planning it. And I'm planning it real good. I dunno when I'm gonna write this, but the home is planning the shit out of it will permit me to just shit the words out.

The starting point for this plan is a method I invented just for it, and by invented I mean came up with something like a lot of other planning methods and that's probably identical to three other people's, but is still mine. The idea was to simply write out nine sentences - the opening image, the first quarter, quarter way image, second quarter, etc.etc. - and then start adding details underneath like setting, juice, mood, and so on. Actually I just thought of mood, I should add that. It's a simple way to get the bones of the story out.

Gee, if only there was another story I needed to do that for?

Incidentally, while I'm rambling, this nine sentence plan is basically a three act plot, just getting more detail through treating the middle as two separate parts. I have to say, the older I get, the more three act stuff makes sense to me. I used to win to do five act, or four act, just to be different, but ultimately it all looks like variations on three act to me now because when you get down to it, beginning-middle-end is the most obvious structure in the world. We can, and probably should, go around sub-dividing those up, but they're still the divisions.

Anyway.

I haven't written out my nine sentence plan for Project Transformation yet but I've had enough of a think to know roughly how it's done. I think it's becoming a bigger book than I meant it to but, oh well, shit happens. Seeing how it goes down is allowing me to do a better job of pick on theme and other ideas. There's a little other stuff I want to check up on before fully deciding but things have got a little more firm. Which characters are major and which aren't is less of a thing, but if other things are solid I feel like I can afford to just find that out.

Very vague, isn't it? Well, I'm not back from holiday yet.

But I know what I'm doing when I get there.