Working out what comes next

I’m currently just getting started on the third, as-yet-untitled book of the Frontier Magic trilogy, and the first step of that is working out the plot in more detail than “they explore the Far West to find out what happened to Lewis and Clark and what’s up in the Rocky Mountains; various characters solve assorted personal and romantic problems” which is pretty much what the original outline said. So I thought I’d talk about how I do that. Warning: I’m trying hard not to, but there may still be some spoilers in the rest of this.

The first point is that I didn’t begin with the outline. I started Chapter One a couple of weeks back, with no outline anywhere in sight. I could do this because Chapter One follows directly from the end of Circuit Magician, and will include basic background and setup for those unfamiliar with the earlier books. Since a lot of it is looking backward, I didn’t need a well-thought-out plan to get started. I do need to know a bit more about what’s coming and how before I get to the middle of the chapter, because it can’t all be backfill. Hence the time spent planning.

Since this is a first-person, fairly character-centered book, the first thing I did was sit down and make a list of characters old and new that I thought would be appearing in this story, and the things I know about what they want or need in their personal lives. Lan’s had a serious whack in the confidence, but he still needs to work on being too sure of himself, and definitely on that temper. Eff needs to quit taking a back seat to Lan, get more sure of herself. William needs to sort out his problems with his father. Like that.

Then I made a list of loose ends remaining from the previous book. At least, it started off as a list: 1) Mr. Boden. 2) Rennie & Brant & Rationalists. By the third item, it was getting speculative: 3) Conflict, William & father…Lan intervenes? Illness? And then it degenerated into freeform notes without numbering: Wash to town? Not east for winter! Proposed expedition – hiring on, arranging people…whose idea? Who’s in charge? Politics!!! Railroad survey? More of particular settlements? Cathayan adept – why? Some of this I may use; some of it I won’t – at this point, it’s just a mish-mosh of questions and things that could happen.

When I started slowing down on that part, I started a new page and made a list of the people I want on the exploratory expedition. I’ve known since the beginning that there’d be one, but until now there wasn’t any reason to decide who’d be going and who wouldn’t. I know I want all the key players along, but a couple of them are going to be hard to justify. I want twenty to twenty-five people total, so there are still a lot of gaps to be filled in later.

About three names in, I realized that I should organize my list of expedition members into three sections: the magicians on the research team, the Settlement Office representatives and guides, and the official army-and-gruntwork folks. So I did that. It helped a lot. I noticed that the research team was all female except for Lan, which is so not reasonable for this time and place, so I added a note to do something about that later.

Since I was still poking around, I started another list, this time of questions I want to have answered by the end of this book. What happened to Lewis and Clark? What’s with that pendant Wash gave Eff? Question of magic vs. tech or tech vs. magic – resolve balance? (May not be possible?) It’s a bit more thematic than the earlier list of loose ends, but only a bit.

At that point, I finally started writing something that’s vaguely outline-like: Chapter 1 – Right after Circuit Magician. Family reactions. Lan thing; more reactions. Chapter 2 – Follow-up investigations to CM. Wash back with news. Fallout from reactions. Visit by Rin? That is as far as I got with a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, because I am totally terrible at predicting how many scenes or chapters it is going to take to cover any given bit of action or background or, well, anything (those “two chapters” above may take one chapter to cover, or three or four; but I can just about guarantee that they won’t take two). But I can do a general breakdown of the action based on time – they have to set up the expedition and figure out who’s going on it, travel, deal with what they find, and get home again, and each part has a certain amount of time that’s reasonable for it to take. So after Chapter 2, I have Winter – Final investigations, preliminary word on expedition. Who’s going. Arguments. People arrive. More arguing. Pendant?? Spring – Expedition leaves, travel through settlements. Summer/fall – travel to winter camp. Encounters. Politics. Winter – Winter camp. Politics and internal personal conflicts. Spring/Summer – Travel on. (There are a few more details than this, but not many, and to give them would be massive spoilers.)

It’s not much of an outline, but it’s enough to give the book a shape. I don’t need more than this to get going. I have enough to go on with for the first couple of chapters; when I get to the end of Chapter 2, I’ll revisit the rough outline, make adjustments, and figure out what happens for the next couple of chapters. I don’t need details for the whole book; I just need enough for the next two chapters, plus a general direction to head.

This is how I’m doing it. It’s not the way everyone works, or the way you should. It’s just how I do it. This time.