Novel Writing - Day Two

Well, I haven’t given up on this first novel project after just one day, so that’s progress. Yesterday I had to think about characters. Today I had to start thinking more about settings, and the things I’ll need to research soon to flesh out the story as accurately as possible.

I’d already been keeping a little research list whenever ideas popped into my head, so that was easy. I think the one issue I faced was with settings - much of that involves me doing research (which I haven’t gotten to yet), so the setting notes I jotted down are rather vague for now.

While I’m not giving away plot details, I will share a bit about the settings and things I’ll be researching:

Settings

There will be two primary settings: the bar at a club in Philly and two neighboring apartments in one of the nearby but quiet city suburbs. This is actually the area where I live. I chose it partly for that reason (less research, I know more about the locals, etc.) and partly because some of our area details are actually perfect for the subtler plot points in the story.

Research

I can’t give away all of the things I’ll be researching, because it would give away story points. But here are a few of the things I’ll be looking into:

• Bartending
• Local wildlife in our suburbs
• Small concealable knives (especially something fitting for a woman)
• Diabetes (from insulin shots to food choices)
• Female superheros (and no, the book doesn’t involve them - it’s something I need to research for a very tiny piece of dialog from a child)
• Violence in Christian history
• Polish immigration to the US after WWII
• Psychological issues and reactions such as reactions to severe remorse, how fears are instilled through brainwashing or traditions, the thought process / justifications people have for killing, etc.
• How blood is drawn and stored (such as for a blood drive)
• Bar / club interiors (perhaps some first-hand research is in order!)
• Philly murder and other violent crime rates (we’re generally pretty bad)

Keeping the Story Fresh

Yesterday I think I mentioned how it can feel like the story is playing in my mind like a movie. This isn’t the first time that’s happened. When I was working on my last novel outline (which I’ll be using to draft a book when these two outlines are completed), the same thing happened.

I was able to use that to not only keep the story fresh on my mind (hard to forget when you can literally visualize it), but I was able to pull up certain plot points “on demand.” I did that by essentially creating a running soundtrack for the book (helped that I was working with musicians more at that time). So I would associate certain scenes with certain songs, and when I wanted to work on something, I would simply listen to the song to be able to separate the scene I was dealing with mentally.

I haven’t done the soundtrack thing for this story yet, but considering the fact that I have most of the plot (even if not most of the individual scenes) laid out in my mind already, I think I may need to soon do that. Has anyone else done something like that when working on fiction, or am I just nuts?

And that’s all for today folks. Tomorrow I start briefly laying out the main plot points (most of which I already have in mind). Perhaps at some point soon after that I’ll run the overall concept by someone else privately for feedback and input.