Preptober 2022
Sunday night, a magical fall thing happened. A cold front came through, and it’s finally not in the 90s here in Austin.
With the cooler air, I’m feeling energized that I can go outside and not drown in sweat. After a long, hot summer, it’s refreshing to have a chill in the air. The older I get, the more I have an appreciation for fall.
Fall is always busy for me, but this year, it’s a little busier as I’m going to do NaNoWriMo in November. Before I can do NaNoWriMo, though, I need to plan out my book. Which leads us to the wonderful season of Preptober.
This is really the first time in a long time, like since before the pandemic, that I am actually running with a new story idea. I think of how much has changed, not just in the world, but in my personal life since 2018, when I was outlining The Emily Burnet Series.
Since it’s been so long, I’m really enjoying go back to the basics. Going over story structure again, like a five act story-structure. I’m also working on setting up this new NaNo project to be a serial, so it’ll be released in seasons. I think the seasons will allow me to come back to these characters every year, in between other books, like a fourth Cassie book.
I’ve been pretty busy working through those basics and plotting each episode. I’ve been working through Brittany Wang’s Serial Bootcamp Course for help on this, specifically that five act structure.
For as long as I’ve been writing, I’ve never really focused on a story structure like I have now. I knew what they were and I knew how to pace a plot for the most part, but I never made the effort to start with the main points of the structure and build a story that way.
It’s a lot easier this way, I have to say.
Since I’m still in the early phases of plotting, details are still fuzzy, but I do want to share what I have so far.
This story is about June Williams, a best selling author, who just finalized a messy and public divorce. Feeling drained from the divorce, June is ready for something new to shake up her life.
On a night out to celebrate her newly single status, June witnesses something terrifying though: a woman kidnapped from the bar, screaming for help. Also witness to the crime is ____ (I don’t have a name for him yet), a local private investigator.
When he takes on the case to help the family find their missing loved one, June convinces him to let her help, and the two are on a race to find the woman before it’s too late, and before they fall for each other.
I just wrote that on the fly right here, so I will take it. But of course there will be crimes and of course there will be some romance, just my two big staples. Over the next ten days, I’ll give all the other people in this story names, finalize at least the first few episodes, and hopefully come up with some names for the season and episodes.
Come up with book titles are my least favorite thing, but it must be done.
It feels good to finally have something in the works.