Yesterday I mentioned gaps, the space where I work within a building manuscript – I thought I would rabbit on some more about them and about writing, too (wot a surprise) – There are different ways to write a story, some start from the beginning and work towards a goal, some just start from the beginning and trust it will go somewhere worthwhile – Others have a game-plan and know not only where they are headed but the route along the way.

Me? I have a string of main points. I know what ending I want – for example, I already have the climax for book 4 (the next one) worked out and the actual last words of that book already written. Book 5 is also already mapped. And yes, so is the one I am currently writing, book 3, The Bastard Line. Of the three threads in book 3, two have their endings set. The third one, although mapped out, is a bit more flexible where it breaks between book 3 and book 4, so I’ll know better where that ending is when I get closer to it. I do know it’s along a certain storyline.

Once I generate a string of events and put them into the order that tells the tale, I have my map. One or two of these events will go into my manuscript-under-construction file, the rest will be in one or more of my note files, awaiting their turn. I don’t like putting them all in at once, unless they are quite widely spaced, otherwise they get in the way of the other stuff that has to go in and you end up doing a lot of shuffling, which can trip you up in more ways than one and waste a lot of time.

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