TOD:
bk, I am curious about your working style for your writing. Do you work from a detailed outline that you map out in advance?
I work from notes, but never an outline. For the Kritzer books I just had pages of notes about incidents I wanted to write about. The shape of the first book just happened and that became the template for the two subsequent books - prologue, part one (anecdotal and character), part two (the story), and an epilogue tied to the prologue. Interestingly, I'd originally written what became the central story of the first book early on as just an early chapter. When I went back and read it I knew I had to story of the book and I just moved it to what became part two.
For Writer's Block, I knew exactly the structure of the book (which is unconventional for a mystery), and again I had lots of notes but no outline - I don't like outlines. Many can't work without them, but for me it's like having blinders on - working without one means I'm not tied to sticking to it and every book I've done has taken me interesting places I would never have gone had I been working with an outline. I learn things as the characters learn them and that's the way I love to write.
With Rewind, again, I knew the exact structure and what would happen, and had lots of notes, but that was it.
The short stories, it was just basically the idea for each of the stories - I only had two going in, and the rest just came to me as I went along.
For the new book, I wanted to write a more conventional mystery, like the ones I grew up enjoying - no outline, but lots of notes. Again, the book has taken me places I never would have thought of with an outline.
So, in essence, I don't write the books, the books write me.
