Progrep 7: Paths to Discovery

Why I’m working from brief notes rather than outlining the novel:  I know things that the characters don’t (like What the Heck Is Going On), so I have to remember that they won’t do what I would do; they’re confronting a mystery, and they’ll go off in all different directions rather than follow what I know to be the straight path to answers.  I have to slow down and take the time to discover what directions they want to head, then let them head in those directions.  In the first past through a scene, I concentrate on laying down the bricks for one particular thing that my notes say has to happen (a plot point, for example, or dialogue that contains necessary exposition).  In the second pass, I make the discoveries:  the mossy bits in the cracked brick, the chips in the mortar.