As happens every March, the students leave for a two week break, and the school allows for a one week vacation. Amen.

Right now, knee deep in outlining the next book. Hard lesson learned  from The Last Track ( and another manuscript that preceded it that will likely never see the light of day ), before diving headlong into a big writing project, I like to be able to do two things:

First, summarize the entire story to three sentences. They can be long compound sentences, the sort generally absent in my writing, or very simple. But the mini synopsis must be concise, coherent and complete. And I’ll bounce that “blurb” off a dozen people. If I sense I’m losing them, that they “aren’t getting it”, then the concept needs more fine-tuning.

Second and more importantly, character sketches. In the hieararchy of development, character motivations matter first and appearance last. Description is a detail and can be added as needed, for flourish. Motivation is what impels a character to act as they do. Characters are not their khakis, Calvin Klein jeans or their Prada shoes. Nor are they black, white or trans-gender. That is incidental. No, characters are what they do, and that rests upon their motivations.

What makes someone tick determines their role in the story, and shapes their interactions with other characters. Most importantly understanding and accepting their motivations forces me to be efficient. Generally that efficacy means letting characters do what they must, consistent with their internal script, and getting out of the way.

And staying out of the way.

So I’m not quite there, but in another week I’ll be close.