Here is a catalog of the outlines and notes I make for each of my stories. With each, I will discuss some of the helps that I have found useful so you can as well. Part of making a story enjoyable to the reader is giving the reader the sense that...
Dark Hunter was a blast to prepare and write and probably my favorite of all the books so far. This story was another genre piece, but the narrative voice and the genre matched so perfectly that I cannot imagine I could ever replicate it again the way this book fit together--at least within the scope of my abilities. Who knows though.
So for those that say an outline stifles creativity, this chapter hopefully will dispel that. A few chapters in (The Dark Hunter Arrives chapters) a funny thing happened. Dess killed Felga before getting the information she needed. The outline note does say simply "Dess takes out everyone" (the last line on the bottom right of the first page outline). Then on the next page, the note says, "Gets info on Acolytes--Kills Felga"
There are no notes and no plan for Dess to kill Felga in a passion before she gets the information she needed, and no notes at all about the riot that occurred. Certainly not any notes about how that affected the political climate of the galaxy.
But at that moment, when I was writing the story, I recognized something about the heroine. Her pain at the loss of her mother was caught up in her search for her ship and the droid. When Felga mentioned her mother's name the second time, it was almost as if Videsse threw the vibroblade on her own. It was completely natural to the story. What was also natural was the consequence. Nar Shaddaa has been a frequently visited moon since my second fanfiction, The Legacy of the Sith, showing up in that story as well as Dark Bounty, and then in this one. The politics of the moon were established by Disney sanctioned media in the comics (up to Dec. 2017) and then reinforced in my story. So if the crime-lady is killed, the stabilizing force is lost, thus chaos. And again, quite naturally as if the moon itself was the active force, a riot erupted and spilled over into the surrounding systems.
Quite unexpectedly, that moment changed this story from just a sequel to The Final Bounty into the first episode of a new trilogy.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
At the very top of the second page, you can see a drawing of the needle-class Arkanian snub ships.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Another deviation from the outline is on this page. On the right side are a series of scenes with Leia Organa that showed what was happening in the galaxy outside of Videsse's story. But those scenes were completely abandoned as the narrative was so heavily tethered to Videsse, there was simply no organic way to insert it into the story. Don't worry, these ideas did make it back into The Jedi Rift and The Children of the Force, the next installments.
Three pages of notes--64,000 words in the final draft; the longest of the books I have written.
