My Journey pt4

Moving on to the actual writing process (now that I have several elements that are playing nicely with each other and beginning to form something that looks like a story).

For this story, I needed a hero to be introduced to the villain’s machinations. It had to be organic, logical, and not within his/her control. (I also needed the hero to be forced to face the threat, whether capable or not. but more on that later.) What might be less controllable than dreams? If these dreams were disturbing, as well as odd, the dreamer might be encouraged to keep a journal, thus giving the reader an insight into the hero’s inner thoughts, without overt exposition or cliche conversations.

So, after writing out a basic outline (my apologies to Mr. King), I first wrote the entire story from the hero’s perspective. but only those parts that would be experienced by the hero - if the hero didn’t see it, it couldn’t be put into the journal. Once this was done, I could identify, then write, various scenes and insert them “between the pages.”

Fortunately, this allowed me to write scenes the hero hadn’t experienced, as well as scenes that expounded on parts the hero had seen. (I also ended up accidentally leaving out almost half the story! This was caught by the local book club, mentioned in the Dedication section. But it also led to writing some of the best/fun parts that were never intended to be put in. More on all that later.) Also, as I wrote the journal, I realized that writing the hero as a woman allowed me to be more descriptive, include more emotion, and have a better character to build into the hero she needed to be. So, Air Force programmer Lt. Luvenia Druckner was born.