So as I am doing my latest homework assignment for my Romance Writing II class, I have found myself stuck on my outline for the fourth book of my Truson S.E.T. Series, A Phiman’s Betrayal. The first plot outline mainly dealt with just the hero and the heroine’s overall story and didn’t include any subplots or plot complications whatsoever. That was the easy part for me.
The second plot outline dealt with adding the subplot in addition to the main plot of the story. This was a little hard at first but what I managed to do when it came to this was add the antagonist to the overall plot of the story to drive the story forward and to push the hero and the heroine to fall deeply in love even more. Now, they want me to do the plot outline again, this time adding more of the secondary characters and plot complications to which would now be my second revision of my plot outline.
I frankly have no problem with adding the other subplot to the overall story considering the hero and the heroine both have friends that contribute to the story but I also have the heroine’s ex-lover who contributes to the plot of the antagonist as well. Technically, the ex-lover will have a book of his own which would only makes sense to include Jacob in the second rewrite of the plot outline right?
This is where the confusion comes in.
This is the opportunity where I would take a break from this assignment and focus on something else to figure out how to do this properly without feeling like I’m doing something wrong in the process. I did this last week too when one of the assignments asked me to create a flashback scene with one of the main characters in the book. It was hard for me to do considering there are no flashback scenes in the book at all.
At least I never considered it until now.
For all writers out there, if you are ever stuck on a scene, a plot outline, a synopsis, a chapter, or just the book in general, walk away from it. Try to do something else besides writing. Then when you are ready, go back to it again with a fresh pair of eyes.
At least, that’s what I’m planning to do.
Dominique Gibson
