Hello, everyone! A HAPPY NEW BEGINNING NOW IS MINE!
I’m so excited to be able to share this milestone with you all: My zero draft has passed 5,000 words!
How is it possible? Sit back and let me tell you the story.
Hello, everyone!
I’m so excited to be able to share this milestone with you all: My zero draft has passed 5,000 words!
How is it possible? Sit back and let me tell you the story.
But before I tell you, let me tell you give you a re-introduction to Car Gone Rogue:
What is Car Gone Rogue NOW?
Car Gone Rogue started as a horror novelette that I wrote in just one week back in October 2021—a month before I got my learner’s permit. Now, three years later, I’m taking that concept and reimagining it into a full-fledged novel.
The story follows three POV characters:
- Brian Breeze: my protagonist,
- Dennis Alexander: my antagonist that was formerly a human in 2001 until he died in a street race that he reluctantly participated in and came back as Brian’s secretly AI-powered green car that his dad gave him that he drove for a Halloween party.
- Lena Carson, my heroic antagonist, who is an amateur teen sleuth, inspired by hearing of Dennis Alexander’s death 20 years ago, and determined to help the police stop all street racing in Walker, California.
All I’m going to say that this story is basically a couple of Fast and Furious movies mixed in with Stephen King’s Christine.
The Road Ahead
On the night of November 20, I dove deep into planning the story. I outlined major beats for each of my three POV characters: their Catalysts, Breaks into 2, Midpoints, All is Lost moments, and Breaks into 3.
On November 21, I got the ball rolling with 428 words. It wasn’t a huge number, but it was a start. It was a little time than the first time higher than the first day I drafted Car Gone Rogue on November 1st at 357 words.
Hitting 5K in Two Days!
On November 22, I aimed for 7,533 words. But I wasn’t disappointed to “only” hit 4,596. That’s still more than halfway to my target and a massive leap forward compared to earlier this month!
I think that’s the most I’ve ever drafted for Car Gone Rogue this month!
But what’s more important is how:
I realized that the story needed to be structured as five acts, with two sequences per act. Breaking the story into sequences meant I was essentially zero-drafting 10 smaller stories, divided into three even smaller stories, with one POV character per story.
That’s a total of 30 mini short stories for Car Gone Rogue!
Once I understood that I then figured out how I was going to zero draft each sequence. It’s something I’m going to call:
The Snowflake Outline Zero Draft Method
The Snowflake Outline Zero Draft Method is a process that uses the priniciples of the Snowflake Outline, and for this project comes in two phases.
It’ll also work really well if you’re also working on a multiple POV project, regardless of the draft for working on!
- Skeleton Phase: Define the Sequence and Outline a Rough Skeleton of Each POV character’s Short Story
Define the Sequence
a. Write a One-Sentence Summary for the Sequence (One sentence stating the goal or purpose of this sequence.)
b. Write a Five-Sentence Summary for the Sequence (Expanding the sentence into five sentences, summarizing all of the mini short-stories in each sequence.)
Outline a Rough Skeleton of Each Skeleton of Each POV character’s Mini Short Story
a. Give each Short Story its own separate one sentence if it doesn’t have one already
b. Expand the Short story one-sentence into its own five sentences (using the three disasters plus an ending).
- Detailed Phase: Outline/draft the scenes in each mini short story.
a. Write a one-sentence summary of each scene in the short story, if you haven’t already.
b. Expand the sentence into five sentences.
c. Expand each sentence into five paragraphs, which can include sensory detail, body language, setting description, and even dialogue.
Today’s Goals
By the end of yesterday, I had completed the Skeleton Phase for the first two sequences and Act 1 as a whole, and I had partially worked through the Detailed Phase.
Now, I’m setting my sights even higher. My plan for the rest of today is to:
- Finish the Detailed Phase for Sequences 1 and 2
- Put Sequence 3 through the entire Skeleton Phase
- Aim for another 7,500 words
Now, I’m setting my sights even higher. My plan for the rest of today is to:
This journey has been incredible so far, and I can’t wait to see where the road takes me next. Stay tuned tomorrow afternoon or evening for an update on everything went!
Wish me luck!
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