Outline Take #2

So I've been struggling with how to finish up Chapter 1. I like my Prologue. I think it captures what I want it to capture, and I think it's the right length. I also think it's a good setup to what will come next. That said, it's also a rough draft. I guess. I don't exactly write in "draft" form. I'm learning how, but I think it's pretty polished overall; it will need some minor changes, but those are along the lines of grabbing a thesaurus and changing a few words or looking up appropriate language for the fifteenth century (yeah, so far, that's not so easy). But Chapter 1...yeah, that's rough. But if I have something down, I figure I can work with it. But right now, I'm struggling with the details in all forms. Structure, flow, word choice, length, little plot details and choices to bring everything to life.

Because I've been struggling, I revisited my outline last night (something else I never have used before, so don't say that I'm not trying to grow as a writer). Now I will be rewriting my outline, seeing as how my new Prologue in no way, shape, or form resembles my outline points. Different voice, different period of life, pretty much everything. Great. I'm not entirely sure you're supposed to have the outline match up to the novel--I think it's supposed to be the other way around. That said, since I'm going in a new direction, I need to write a new outline. I won't have to totally change it, but there will need to be some major revisions since I'm going in a somewhat different area.

And someone (whom I actuallly gave my one-sentence plot description to) asked if it was going to be straight or humorous. The answer is straight. I'd love it to be funny, and some people think I am funny, but I don't see a way--for me, I can see others doing it--to successfully write it and be funny. Humour is so much harder than drama. I'm going for biographical. Which is, I suppose, dramatic.

And so for my quotes on writing. Two Matt sent me (link above) the other from a memoir I'm reading (also quoted from elsewhere).

"The first draft of everything is shit." --Ernest Hemmingway

"Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing." --Meg Crittenden.

"writing is easy......just stare at the blank page until your forehead bleeds." --on the cover of Allan Weisbecker's Can't You Get Along with Anyone? (attributed to at least three people on the web, Weisbecker say's it's Gene Fowler, web says Gene Fowler and Douglas Adams and Robert McKee...somedays I hate the web).

Right. Off to grab my notebook and rewrite my outline. Then perhaps I'll try--AGAIN--to find some sort of repository on the web of fifteenth century English dialogue. No, Shakespeare doesn't really cut it, for many, many reasons. One of those being that Wills was sixteenth century. Though in a pinch I may use him.