As a self-confessed SOTP writer—and a lover of all things analogous—I must go on with the analogy of the road trip/roadmap and writing. So I’ve come up with six stages of the writing roadmap:

Stage A
–Drive from Nashville to Dallas.

–I want to write a romance novel.

Stage B
–Take the interstate to Little Rock where you’ll get on another interstate that goes all the way into Dallas.

–Hero and heroine meet; they develop feelings for each other; something threatens to tear them apart; they reconcile and live happily ever after.

Stage C
–Take I-40 West out of Nashville through Memphis to Little Rock. In Little Rock, get on I-30 West toward Texarkana. Stay on I-30 West until you reach Dallas.

–A wedding planner thinks she is falling in love with a client. But he is a man with a secret. When the secret is revealed—the real identity of the man she’s planning the wedding for—he could lose her forever. After several conflicts that seem to finally tear them apart, she realizes he is the one she truly loves and will go to extreme lengths to make sure she doesn’t lose him. They reconcile and live HEA.

Stage D
–Take I-40 West toward Memphis—which is about a 3.5 hour drive, unless you stop in Jackson, which is about halfway. Go through Memphis on I-40 (be careful not to end up on I-55), and cross the Mississippi River into Arkansas. Stay on 40 about 2 more hours until you get almost to Little Rock, where you’ll take the I-440 West loop that will connect you to I-30 West toward Texarkana. It’ll take about two hours to get to Texarkana where you’ll cross into Texas. Then just stay on I-30 another three hours or so and you’ll be in Dallas!

–Anne Hawthorne, a wedding planner, meets and is attracted to a mysterious Englishman, George Laurence. She is excited at the prospect of getting to know him better . . . until he shows up with a much-younger woman at her office for a wedding consultation. George, a personal assistant to a wealthy, famous man, is only posing as the groom to protect his employer’s privacy. Anne struggles with her growing attraction to George, whom she believes is an engaged man, and considers risking not only her professional reputation but her business by canceling the contract she signed with him—until he reveals he is not the one getting married. Their relationship develops slowly as Anne learns to trust him again. Then, she learns the man she’s really planning the wedding for is someone from her past who used her and then dropped her at the worst possible moment—three days before they were supposed to get married. She must work through her anger at her ex-fiancé and forgive him if she is ever to have a chance at happiness with George. But when it appears George has also used her as part of his own agenda, Anne turns down his proposal of marriage. When she finally sees and understands the truth, she must stop George from leaving—and to do so must face her greatest fear. Just when she thinks he is gone forever, he finds her; they kiss and become engaged to be married.

Stage E
I don’t have room to go into all the details of E and F, but here’s a summary:
–Turn by turn directions with mileages, estimated times, and exit numbers—pretty much what you’d get in the driving directions on Mapquest or Mappoint.

–This would be the equivalent of the 5-7 page novel synopsis—all of the major events of the story instead of just the general ideas above.

Stage F
— Turn by turn directions of how to get from your driveway to the driveway of your final destination. Map with mileages. A list of every city you’ll pass through. Road construction and speed limit zones marked. Places of interest to stop along the way—and the best restaurants and rest areas to stop at.

–Chapter by chapter synopsis. The Snowflake Method. A detailed outline of all major and minor events with character descriptions and setting information.

When I sit down to start something new, Stages A and B pretty much go without saying. So I start at Stage C—figuring out the basics of the story. Who are the characters? What brings them together? What threatens to separate them?

I’ll do some pre-work with my characters—back story, family, education, career, outlook on life—that leads up to the “meet.” Because I started learning craft from people who write category-length romances, I start writing my story with the “meet.” In both HEI and RH, I use the first chapter as a place to show the characters interacting with their natural environments and set the scene, establish “normal,” and introduce the characters to the reader. By the time I’m at Stage C, I already have in mind a “meet” scene. It most likely will be changed in revisions—perhaps many times—but it gives me a good point to start exploring the relationship. And how the characters react to each other when they meet can give rise to all sorts of ideas for conflicts to arise further along in the story.

By the time I’m about 1/3 of the way into the story, I’m at Stage D. I know the major events and conflicts—internal and external—but am still in the discovery process as I write every day (or whenever it is that I write, which isn’t usually every day).

I completed Stage E after I completed the first draft of HEI. This was actually a helpful exercise, because so many things changed mid-stream when writing it, that I needed the long synopsis to make sure I had one consistent story when I went back to start revising.

I have not—and hope never to have to—gotten to Stage F. While I’m about 50/50 right brain/left brain, Stage F is WAY too analytical for me! But I do know people who work through all six stages before even beginning to write the story. But no matter where we each fall in the Stages, what’s most important is enjoying the journey and arriving at the final destination.

Next time . . . how writing is like cooking.