What if...

Okay, I'm reading through K.M. Weiland's book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success and I'm finding it very helpful.  (Check out her blog for writers at http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/) Yes, I was a panster, but it just wasn't working for me. So, I got this one for Kindle.
 I also got it, because a new project I'm working on easily has the potential to be absolutely brilliant, and I want to be able to give the magnificence it deserves.
 So I'm in the chapter on premise sentences, and there's a section on asking the famous question "What if?" to generate new ideas and possibilities for the story. She used her novel Behold the Dawn as an example.

I use these because I can see pencil on the pages. Old school, I know

I took it a step further, and asked What if... and then on the next line in my notebook, I asked another question that led from the previous question, for half a page. This isn't a small notebook either.
The process helped come up with a whole lot of new ideas compared to what I started with. It's fast, fairly easy (For me), and shows whole new paths the story can go.

I'll do an example here. Let's do something fairly generic.

What if there were aliens in outer space? Now we have the question that sends us on our path of discovery, but it's the answer that will give us conflict and plot.
What if those aliens wanted to conquer Earth? More of a specific idea, than anything that can help us, but it suggests conflict.
Wait, what if there was another group of aliens fighting to defend Earth? Now the pot is boiling. Why are the two fighting over Earth? What makes Earth special? Why does the one want to conquer it? Why does the other want to defend Earth? How long have they been fighting?
What if Earth holds a very important secret? What's the secret? Who put it there? Why Earth? What makes it so important that war would be fought over it?
What if someone from Earth discovers the secret? Now we have a main character. Now, how does the keeper of the secret respond to the secret, and the responsibility that comes with it? What does he/she do with it? What forces the protagonist into the conflict between the alien forces? What inner conflict does he/she have to face to succeed? What's the goal? Who is the protagonist?
What if the villains find out and seek to capture the secret holder or someone close? Now we have the antagonists actively seeking to thwart the hero, which leads to more questions. How do they do it? Who is the person kidnapped? What can you do unexpected?

 Getting the picture of this method? It forces you think about your idea in more specific terms than usual, and reveals new pathways.

 Can you think of any answers or other questions? Will you use this for one of your projects?

Remember, always ask the question "What if?".

Seat of the Pants in Five (Almost) Easy Steps

   It may appear that many people frown on writers who write seat of the pants (SotP) style. It's a shame really. SotP writing is really fun, similar to reading a book for the first time. Or more like playing a role-playing game.
   Their disdain might stem from the fact that just sitting down and writing a novel with no idea what will happen is scary, even less so than outlining. In outlining, you don't actually have to write the novel for a while. You can spend quite a bit of time on the outline before starting the first sentence. You often can have detailed character profiles, plot, twists, character arcs. Everything but the story.
  With SotP, you start out with minimal planning and just dive in. I generally start with characters and a basic plot. I might write a list of scenes I want, but no order, so that the story flows and twists naturally. Granted, it sometimes seems to wander a bit. In Hunter Romero and the Atlantean Curse, I started with nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just started writing and it's the farthest and most developed one I have.
  Let me give you an example of my normal SotP outline along with the first step from Lester Dent's Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot. Here are the steps I've taken so far.
  STEP 1: I had an idea. That's how all my novels start out as, an idea, generally a scene or a nebulous feeling. It was a  modern Doc Savage/Indiana Jones/ Lance Juno character crossing a rickety wooden bridge. I sub-consciously asked three questions. Who was he? What was he doing? Why was he doing it?
  STEP 2: I answered the above questions with the answers Jack Wilder, fighting an Egyptian cult, and it was his job. That was good, but he needed fleshed out and helpers. I learned that he was an ex-Special Forces soldier who was honorably discharged due to an injury. He co-owns a company, Wilder and Gray, Soldiers of Fortune, along with Jonathan Gray, a retired CIA agent. There's a third person, but I haven't made him yet. I figured out their skills and their looks.
STEP 3: Define a basic plot idea. What is the conflict? Who are the perpetrators? Why is the hero there? Why is he involved?  This is also where I filled in the four starting points for the above mentioned formula. This is a simpler step, but it requires lots of thinking to make everything seem reasonable. I might use a plot generator for ideas, I found a good adventure plot generator, or even character generators.
STEP 4: Write. This is the final and longest step. This is where I just sit down and start pouring the story onto paper. It will be pretty bad, but some parts will be brilliant and other parts will need cut and fixed. The twists will surprise you, and they should surprise the readers.
STEP 5: Edit and revise the novel several times so that is perfect. This will take a while and will need several posts to cover fully. 

 So those are my five steps to writing a novel. Sometimes it's rough, it's normally hard, but it's a blast to write.