Least Favorite Part of Writing

Starting out a new novel, which I'm doing at the moment, is my least favorite part of writing a novel. You have to make sure there's a decent plot. Got that. You have to make sure there's a decent subplot. Still working on that. You have to make sure you have the characters you need, and the characters all need a significant role in the plot. Still working on that too. And you have to make sure you have a great climax to the story. I'm working on that, too.

But that's the problem. It's work. Meaning, you have to work hard to make sure it all works. It has to fit together like a puzzle. Like when you compose a song. You have to make sure the different parts of the song flow together seamlessly. You don't want your song to sound choppy, or disconnected, nor do you want your story to be ill-fitting from scene to scene.

And that's the hard part of writing. But once you've got all that done, the revising and editing is the easy part. For me, the revising is the most fun. But the problem is for my five prior novels, that stage is over, and now I'm back to square one for the start of my sixth novel.

Interestingly, for my fifth novel, Second Chance, I didn't have to undergo that beginning stage. It had all come to me in a dream. I know it sounds unbelievable, but maybe it's because, like the main character in Second Chance, I too was robbed of my senior year of high school football. Don't need to get into the details, but as a result of that, I had recurring dreams about it. Almost like a what if scenario in dreams that recurred for forty years.

And it was that last dream, well, the dream from about a year ago now, it was pretty much an entire story that took place in the dream, and I wrote out the outline the next day. And I finished that outline in that same day. Compare that to now, where I'm on my third day trying to pound together an outline for Book Three of the Killer Series, and I'm still not finished. It has to be perfect. Like the first two books are. But the only way you get it done is to do it. So back to work.