#drafting

[FIGURE OUT THIS PART LATER]

I'm likely going to say some stuff that you've heard before, so forgive me if it comes off as condescending, but it sounds like you're diving deep into the really fun world-building aspect without having a guideline on how to turn that into a story.

First, you need an outline. I've no doubt you've heard this before, but an outline is the perfect place to figure out why you keep petering out after a few chapters. If you put it in an outline, you can easily see why one plot point won't carry through over another one.

It doesn't really matter how you outline. Could be on flashcards, could be in an Excel file, could be following The Hero's Journey, Freytag's Pyramid, the Save The Cat Beat Sheet, or your basic Three Act Structure. The point is you want to outline with a beginning, middle, and end as your goals, and any method that gets you there is grand.

The second reason I want you to do an outline first is to follow a piece of excellent advice I picked up in a screenwriting class, which is to make a choice, stick with it, and move onto the next one.

Let's say you're at an story wall. Your characters can drop everything they're doing and a) pursue an alleged murderer, b) stick around and try to solve the murder, or c) shrug their shoulders and move on toward defeating the wizard. None of these choices are bad, but one may work better to move your story forward better than the others. In an outline, you can commit to choice A and carry it forward until it's very clear that's not what is suited for your story. Then you can go back to where your plot went off the rails and find a better path forward. A couple of pages of discarded outline is way better than cutting five chapters, and those tweaks you want to make will be easier to do to your outline.

Second, and this is the hard part, you need to finish the first draft. Many authors end up with something vastly different than their first draft. I just attended a book signing with Martha Wells where she said that she often writes 10k words before finding the story she really wants to write. There are no wasted words, but you must finish the thing before you can make it into the story you want.

*In writing terms, an architect is someone who plots out, plans, and outlines things before drafting. A gardener is someone who takes an initial idea and then just writes, seeing how the idea grows without specific plans.

A 5% efficiency gain at the cost of a 99% efficiency loss

Drafting [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

During World War 2 in America the enlisted troops serial number started with 12 and the drafted troops started with 32

Bucky's serial number is 32557038 (yes I do know that off by heart)

His number starts with 32...

32.

Our boy was drafted, he didn't enlist and juding by the year he was probably drafted due to the Service and Enlistment Act

But did not choose to go to war, he was forced.

Just let that sink in

Because I cannot get over the fact that James Barnes never wanted to go to war, and Steve Rogers desperately wanted to be fit enough to enlist had swapped places

That parallel is insane