I'm working on a new book right now. I spent the last month outlining it, using a combination of "Anatomy of Story" and "Save the Cat." When I was finished, I had completed 6 drafts of the complete scene list with 99 entries, had character sheets, and adapted a story bible from a previous novelette to use on this. I felt ready to go.
And I was. In two days / 5 hours of writing, I knocked out about 4100 words to complete the first chapter, and I like how it turned out a lot. With all this prep work done, I started knocking out word counts, fast.
However
When I got started I realized I had two side characters that were really better off as one character, and that that character had more agency than I thought they did, and that they would be a natural enemy of another view point character. They became fairly compelling in the first chapter, and now I feel like I can't write any other second chapter than what happens from their perspective.
So now I'm sitting in a coffee shop, writing up a new character and seeing if I can adapt my outline with all this new information.
Still, I'm glad I did the prep, because the outlining process was so creative that the story I started writing was much, much better and very different than what I had at my first outline. Even though this new story may end up being fairly different, it is so much better than what I would have had if I just went with the initial version.
Ta da.
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