While in San Antonio, I fired up QuickPlot on the laptop (WinXP, so no Scrivener).  After doing the story arc math from Jennifer Crusie’s RWA Handout posted over at Argh Ink and plugging it in, I began transferring my notes I’d printed from Scrivener before leaving Central Texas.  The first thing I discovered, was that I’d started out all wrong (not saying I have to follow Jenny’s story arc, but it made sense for this story — a category romance).

I think I figured out how to have critical action in the beginning of the story while still allowing time for the relationship between the characters to build.  For me, this isn’t as easy as it sounds.

This story has precipitating events that make the beginning challenging enough, so I think I have enough to build to the First Turning Point.  I still don’t have a workable Sentence (a’ la How to Think Sideways).  I do believe I see a need to cover at least two story aspects in the outline — the story itself and the growing relationship between the two main characters.  I think if I do that, I’ll keep the threads on track — or at least have an idea when I’ve wandered into off-road territory and need to lock in the hubs.

I’ve been reworking a few scenes today, and have reached the Second Turning Point.  I’m not certain I’m satisfied with the progress to this point.  There’s something that doesn’t feel quite right, and that usually means something isn’t quite right.  But what might it be?  I’ll have to figure it out.

For those of you using Scrivener, I’ll share a couple of observations on technique.  Feel free to add suggestions or comments.  I’ve been working in the Corkboard screen for typing in the notecards, but it’s easier to read through the whole thing in the Outliner screen.  Of course, entering data in the Outliner screen isn’t as easy as in the Corkboard screen — I can’t create paragraphs in that mode.  Easy to do on the index card, though, so I think I’ll use the Outliner screen for reading through for continuity after I get the basics typed in.