{"id":3648,"date":"2012-11-26T21:04:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T21:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=3648"},"modified":"2017-12-01T01:18:03","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T01:18:03","slug":"dakota-stevens-3-starting-from-scratch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/dakota-stevens-3-starting-from-scratch\/","title":{"rendered":"Dakota Stevens #3: Starting from Scratch"},"content":{"rendered":"

While writ\u00ading the first two books in the Dako\u00adta Stevens Mys\u00adtery Series\u2014A Real Piece of Work<\/em><\/a> and The Rich Are Dif\u00adfer\u00adent<\/em><\/a>\u2014I kept note\u00adbooks of oth\u00ader plot ideas, titles, scenes, char\u00adac\u00adters and any\u00adthing else that occurred to me for future install\u00adments.<\/p>\n

As a result of these note\u00adbooks, I had begun two more Dako\u00adta nov\u00adels and cre\u00adat\u00aded out\u00adlines for 3\u20134 oth\u00aders.<\/p>\n

How\u00adev\u00ader, when I opened these note\u00adbooks recent\u00adly with the intent of con\u00adtin\u00adu\u00ading one of the sto\u00adries I\u2019d start\u00aded, I did\u00adn\u2019t like what I found.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d writ\u00adten this mate\u00adr\u00adi\u00adal (includ\u00ading the first hun\u00addred pages of a Dako\u00adta & Svet\u00adlana pre\u00adquel) between 5 and 7 years ago, and I\u2019d matured as a writer since then.<\/p>\n

I no longer liked the direc\u00adtion I\u2019d sketched out for the char\u00adac\u00adter and the series.<\/p>\n

A real\u00adiza\u00adtion soon fol\u00adlowed that made me sick to my stom\u00adach:<\/p>\n

I need\u00aded to dump all of that work and start over.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you\u2019ve cre\u00adat\u00aded a series char\u00adac\u00adter, start\u00ading from scratch is a scary thought. For the first time since I invent\u00aded Dako\u00adta & Svet\u00adlana, I won\u2019t have drafts of work to build on. I\u2019ll be fac\u00ading a blank Page One and all of the par\u00ada\u00adlyz\u00ading dread that accom\u00adpa\u00adnies it.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m doing it. I\u2019m start\u00ading from scratch, main\u00adly because a nov\u00adel is a hell of a lot of work, and you have to start with a sto\u00adry, a vision, that you real\u00adly want to tell. It\u2019s the only thing that car\u00adries you through.<\/p>\n

Ulti\u00admate\u00adly, the task before me now is to fig\u00adure out what excites me about Dako\u00adta & Svet\u00adlana, and to ask myself, \u201cWhat is the Dako\u00adta sto\u00adry I would most like to read?\u201d<\/p>\n

I know that\u2019s the ques\u00adtion I need to be ask\u00ading because it\u2019s the same one I asked myself before writ\u00ading the first two nov\u00adels, and I\u2019m pleased with the results.<\/p>\n

Alleged\u00adly, J.R.R. Tolkien was part\u00adly inspired to write his Lord of the Rings series for this very rea\u00adson. He thought about the books that he would most like to read, real\u00adized they did\u00adn\u2019t exist yet, and set out to write them.<\/p>\n

He wrote the books he most want\u00aded to read.<\/em> This is a great les\u00adson for all of us writ\u00aders.<\/p>\n

Over the com\u00ading months, I\u2019ll be writ\u00ading the first draft of Dako\u00adta 3. I have no idea what kind of sto\u00adry it will be or where it will take me; all I know is, I want it to be a fresh take on my vision for the series, and I want it to be as well writ\u00adten as I can pos\u00adsi\u00adbly make it. We\u2019ll see if I can pull it off.<\/p>\n

Wish me luck, Dear Read\u00ader. I\u2019m going to need it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While writ\u00ading the first two books in the Dako\u00adta Stevens Mys\u00adtery Series\u2014A Real Piece of Work and The Rich Are Dif\u00adfer\u00adent\u2014I kept note\u00adbooks of oth\u00ader plot\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,30,3,19,11,12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-real-piece-of-work","category-chris-orcutt-books","category-craft","category-fiction","category-dakota-stevens-mysteries-series","category-the-rich-are-different","category-writingexperiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3648"}],"version-history":[{"count":59,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7765,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3648\/revisions\/7765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}