This month's Ask A Wench focuses on another craft question . . . and as you'll quickly see from our responses, the creative mind is rarely tidy! Z<G>
How do you begin writing a new book? Do you rely on outlines or charts, or do you wing it from notes?
Pat: See me flying into the mist, crashing into mountains.??.??. At the start of a series, where I am now, I???ll have the kernel of the series idea and a couple of main characters. Ideas float around. I scribble notes like:
Gothic mansion hidden in cotswolds? Cornwall?
Picturesque Elizabethan village
Hero thinks he’s dying? Looking for relatives?
Hero lives alone except for wickedly interfering, annoying mother/housekeeper/nanny
Historian who has studied egalitarian societies and believes England should move that direction
They’re both not normal, not fit for others; O/C
He’s in search of something important; she was orphaned during a storm/shipwreck
Autism/race/religion
He has enormous family tree of names pinned to fabric. Bottom of tree folds up and can be lifted to hang over top of tree. Hereditary short finger or toe proves lineage
House has no entail so it can be passed to female descendant or sold. People who want it sold at war with ones who want to keep it?