I had so much fun sharing pages from the novel notebook from Forgive My Fins (Part 1 and Part 2) that I’m going to share more of my behind-the-book writing process. First up is the latest book in the Forgive My Fins series: Pretty in Pearls.
If you don’t know, Pretty in Pearls is a novella that stars Princess Lily’s best mermaid friend, Periwinkle Wentletrap. Peri has crushed on a dashing pearl trader for years. Now that he’s back in town, will she finally take her chance?
It’s always fun to write about a secondary character, especially when I get to give them a happy ending.
If you haven’t read Pretty in Pearls yet, you might want to do that before you check out these pages from my novel(la) notebook. Spoilers ahead, matey!
The Title Page
First up is, as always, a colorful title page.
The Chapter Breakdown
One of my first steps to plotting a story is almost always to create this kind of gridded chapter breakdown. It lets me see, in a visual way, the overall structure of the story.
The bright blue asterisks mark major plot points, like the inciting incident, the break into act two, the midpoint, the all is lost moment, and the break into act three.
There are many different names for these plot points. It doesn’t matter what you call them, as long as they’re there.
The Train of Thought
When I get stuck, sometimes I start writing a train of thought note. This will often lead me to a completely unexpected idea that gets me unstuck.
The Timeline
I always, always, always keep a story timeline. This helps me not only make sure that everything fits in place chronologically, but also shows me if there are any huge gaps in time when nothing happens.
The Character Arcs
A story is basically a character seeking something, facing obstacles in their way, and changing as a result of the journey. Writing down the major points of change gives me a cheat sheet to make sure I’m actually showing those changes.
The Glossary
Whenever I come up with a word or phrase unique to my story world (sea slang in my mermaid books, fae language in the Darkly Fae series) I like to jot it down so I create a glossary for myself. And for you! You can download the Sea Slang Glossary and the Fae Glossary on my Extras page.
The Revision Notes
I always keep a running list of things I think/know I need to go back and fix when I’m done with the first draft. This keeps me from going back and trying to fix them while I’m still drafting, which is a surefire way to never finish.
The Plot Thread Arcs
I’m always experimenting with different types of plot structures. In this case, I was trying out the Dan Wells Seven-Point Story Structure method. This method is really helpful if you’re trying to write a story with multiple plot threads (a la the J.K. Rowling Plot Spreadsheet for Order of the Phoenix).
If you want to learn more about this method, check out this YouTube playlist of workshop where Dan presented his method in depth or listen to this episode of Writing Excuses.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this dive into Peri’s story (*cough-cough* bad pun). If you’ve read Pretty in Pearls I hope this gives you some more insight into Peri and Riatus.
Let me know if there are any other books that you specifically want to see into the development process.
Don’t miss my other novel notebook posts!
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