Outlines: Plans That Rarely Work Perfectly

Posted on July 31, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

(Originally posted on March 11, 2015.)

The Idea Pile

The Idea Pile

I talk about having outlines and making plans before I write.  These act like a ‘baby draft’ and make the creation of a first draft smoother.  At least to me.  It’s this part of my writing system that makes me a Plotter, which is a term I never heard until 2013.  Yet there is some Pantser stuff in the details when I get to the actually writing.  I also seem to hit that point and never mention the outlining stage.  So here we go:

  1. Character biographies and write ups can help.  I tend to start with a basic role then add a name and then write a paragraph.  This includes goals, role, description, a few subplots that turn up, etc.  This is actually entirely off the cuff and it helps create more meat for the overall story.  For example, some personal rivalries and habits that will be appearing in the vampire series came about from these biographies.  So did the Kira/Luke/Sari thing when I designed Kira.
  2. I prefer to divide each chapter into 2-4 scenes and write a line for each one.  Just basic concept of what I’m aiming for in that scene.  The details appear while I write and I might even switch characters if it works better.  I’ve found that I do these outlines for every book in a series before I start.  Though I might only do it for the first 2-3 of the longer ones.
  3. It doesn’t hurt to change the plan and I remember this from the beginning.  It’s really better to have too much and chop things down than to not have too much and try to fill stuff in without harming the useful stuff.  A subplot might get dropped, two scenes might work best as one, something might be unneeded, a previous book changes the future outlines, etc.  I tend to look over the next outline as soon as I finish a book to see how they match up.  Then I do a repair and rewrite for a day or two.  Most stuff tends to stay, but other things get switched around.  Then again, I already know that Book 11 is going to need a major overhaul.
  4. Notes, notes, and more notes on everything.
  5. It doesn’t hurt to stop and flush out something that needs more details.  I do this a lot with specific creatures and magical stuff in my books.  A big reason for this is that I never know if this will be used again.  With so many series, it’s entirely possible for these things to pop up more than once.
  6. Timelines can help.  I actually don’t use these, but I know many who do.  Sorry I’m not much help here.
  7. PERSONAL PREFERENCE:  Making the outlines and notes by hand seems to work best.  Lower chance of losing the information as long as you keep fire and liquids away from the books.  When writing the books, I use the laptop and work quickly.  I let the established plan take me away and my fingers run along the keyboard.  The outlines push me into another part of my mind, so it goes slower and doing it by hand makes it clearer.  Again, that’s just me.

So, do you have any rituals or plans that you do before diving into the actual book-writing?

Posted in Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Poetry Day: The Random Remote Ruler

Posted on July 30, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

Spock from Firefly or Something

(I think most people know someone who will get the TV remote and then channel surf the whole time.  They won’t give up control even though they don’t know what they want to watch.  You either have to remain captive or go do something else. Gets rough when they stop on a bad show or movie for some reason.)

Every household has one
That the others come to fear
The one with a no track mind
And a flea’s attention span
It creates a nightly race
To get the precious remote
God forbid you lose

 

They change channels
In search of something
That they cannot explain
Passing shows worth watching
And movies rarely seen
Not listening to the family
Who wish they would go pee

 

Eventually they stop
On a show that no one wants
And they cannot explain
Roaming with every break
Never returning in time
Making the unwanted show
Even worse to view

 

The evening carries on
With no release in sight
They maintain control
As the shows get worse
The others start to fade
Giving up their seats
To go and read a book

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Ye Olde . . . Balancing Act?

Posted on July 29, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

(Originally posted on March 13, 2015.  Seems to be a variation of the ‘Ye Olde Shoppe’ posts.  A little clunky though.)

Donald Duck

Donald Duck

So what seems to be the trouble?  Your hero went too dark and lost the shoulder angel?  It happens when you’re too rough with them.  Guessing you pushed a little too hard and the poor thing couldn’t move on.  Did you have a replacement?  That’s  a shame, but it’s not the end of the story.  We can fiddle with your hero to get him on the right track.  How’s your villain doing?  Not a scratch.  That might make things easier.  Let me take a like in the old chestnut.

I see part of the problem.  You took all of the motivation and controls off the hero.  It can work if your story allows for him to go dark, but you just drove him into the ground.  Now you can do a few things with this.  The easiest ways are to have him go villain, henchman, or feral while introducing a new hero.  It’s not unheard of and it takes less effort that dragging him out of the abyss.  Many people do this.  Let’s not mention comic books here.  Great fun, but those characters can switch sides at the switch of a writer.  They’re consistent in their inconsistency, which is how they last for so long.  Bitter?  Maybe, but that’s neither here nor there.  We need to fix this guy up.  What’s your choice?

Since you want a repair, I should point out the other issue.  You never gave this guy any downtime or stable happy moments.  All I see here is misery, fighting, and things being taken away.  You were going for a gritty anti-hero, right?  Well that’s great as long as you don’t go over the edge.  They still need a slightly noble goal, a friend or two even if they don’t reciprocate, or something to keep them as a hero.  You’ve had this guy go on vengeful massacres, lose two wives to accidents, and forced to kill five of his own children.  Why do you keep bringing his mother back and killing her off?  Do you have any idea what you’re doing?  Even a character’s psychology can be broken.  At the very least, your story is a mess and this guy is embodiment of that.

Here’s what I’m going to do.  I’ll keep your hero for a week and remove a lot of the trauma that you caused.  In fact, I’m going to take all of it out and let you choose the three pieces that I put back in.  You’re going to take this coupon and go to my aunt’s boutique.  She designs happy events for characters.  Buy some and have at least one with the ‘unbreakable insurance’.  That stops you from messing with it.  After you do this, go home and rewrite your story.  This is only a suggestion though.  You can ignore me, do what you want, and break this guy again.  If you do then know that I charge extra for customers who repeatedly break their toys.  See you in a week, kid.

Posted in Olde Shoppe Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Teaser Tuesday: Ladies of Different Paths

Posted on July 28, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

Cover Art by Alison Hunt

Here is a teaser from War of Nytefall: Ravenous.  I figure it’s a time for Nadia Sylvan to get a scene.  Check out the full book for the whole story.  Feel free to leave a review too.  Those are more precious than gold and infinitely harder to find.

Continue reading →

Posted in Teaser Tuesday, War of Nytefall | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Windemere Governments: Gaia

Posted on July 27, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

(Originally posted on December 15, 2014.  Found an old 6-part blog series that I’ll do for the next 6 Mondays.  It only covers Legends of Windemere for a bit, but it was still interesting.)

City of Gondor from Lord of the Rings

City of Gondor from Lord of the Rings

A (really long) while back I wrote about how the kingdom of Serab works.  Well, John W. Howell asked another question about how the smaller governments work in Windemere, so I’m going to briefly explain the unique ones this week.

Gaia is the biggest city of Windemere when it comes to population, barely edging out Gods’ Voice.  It is on the western coast and is near the mouth of the L’dandrin River, making it a major port city for trade and transportation.  Gaia is also called the Western Sister City and that’s pretty much all you need to know before I delve into the leaders.

While Gaia falls under Serab, which is the major kingdom ruled by Duke Solomon, it has it’s only local system.  These are the Grand Counselors who meet in secret to discuss laws and issues.  Many of the members are publicly known and each one has his or her own specialty area.  For example, Lord Daniel Skyblade is a Grand Counselor who oversees public challenges and handles all mercenary issues.  Each member is an experienced specialist in their field, including master thieves and spies who are the only unknown members.

There is no central figure of the Grand Counselors since they are seen as equals.  At times, one will be chosen as a public face of a situation and may even hold the title of mayor.  It is always temporary, but there have been a few instances where the person wishes to hold the title for longer.  They ended up being removed from their position.

In regards to the retirement and promotion of a Grand Counselor, both are done with very little outside celebration.  There is no item of office to carry because of the risk of such a thing being stolen or copied by thieves.  Instead, a public declaration is made as long as the Grand Counselor was in charge of a field that could be discussed in public.  This makes the organization one of the more low key and open groups in Windemere.

Posted in Legends of Windemere | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Questions 3: Animals

Posted on July 26, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

I’ve made a lot of animal posts over the years.  It’s created many conversations, especially when it’s an endangered animal.  Today, I’m just going to pose some questions about animals.  Might learn something interesting.

  1. What is your favorite wild animal?
  2. What is an interesting animal fact that you know?
  3. What animal did you recently learn existed?
Posted in Animal Posts | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Goal Post: Hope Is The First Step Towards Disappointment

Posted on July 25, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

As you can tell, it was a rough week.  Guess more on that later.

I did managed to finish chapter 2 of Darwin & the Deadlands Queen.  Had trouble with one section because it starting going in a loop, so I had to pause for a bit to think it through.  I still have an issue with Darwin not operating like my previous heroes.  It’s in his nature to figure problems out quickly after some chaos and using unconventional means.  He also doesn’t argue much and still believes people fairly easily.  This results in fights going off the rails and then ending with a sudden conclusion.  Conversations have him asking a few questions then going ‘okay’.  Probably another reason I keep having doubts and feeling like I’ve lost my skills.

I tried to work on Coven of the Gray, but I couldn’t carve out the time.  There was a lot of things I had to do in the morning before getting to work.  So, I couldn’t tinker with the idea while waiting for people to show up.  Evenings weren’t any better since I had my son and we do stuff until 9 PM.  Then he goes to his room to do his own thing and I get ready for bed.  Yeah, he stays up later than me since he can sleep in.  Guess this summer isn’t going to be as productive as I had hoped.

My son’s birthday is this week, so he’s doing a hangout today.  That means getting pizzas and drinks for a bunch of teenagers to chill in the backyard.  Definitely not going to try writing while they’re around in case I’m needed.  An old friend is staying too, so it would be rude to leave her to sit by herself.  Anyway, this also means that my son’s actual birthday will be a no for writing.  He does have a few other events though, so I might be able to get the first part of Chapter 3 done.  That can open the door for me to finish it over the weekend.  Depends on if I have my son or not.  He’s also at the age where spending time with his old man isn’t a given.  I could get a whole day of writing or he could grace me with his presence the whole time.  The fun unpredictability of teenagers.  I should enjoy it while it lasts.

Now for the disappointment stemming from hope.  I won’t go into details, so it’s going to be fairly vague.  I try really hard to be a good person and help others, including those who I know hate me.  I’ve known for a while that some of these people blame for me their situations even while asking me for help.  Yet, I didn’t expect the stories to cause so much opinion shifting when they came out.  I only read a little of what was said, but it made me out to be an unhinged monster.  Information was left out to make things worse or hide the fact that I was provoked.  Sometimes, things other people did were attributed to me.  This has actually being going on for years, but this is the first time I ever faced stories that demonized me so much.

The part that hurts the most is that I tried.  I’m not a saint, but I’m not a monster.  I slipped up with my temper and raised my voice when pushed too far.  Yet, I was still trying to help these people before and after the provocation.  I’ve been told to keep helping while they push to have me isolated from anyone who would be willing to hear my side of the story.  It’s agonizing to be in a situation where helping a person gets twisted to say I’m a controlling bastard, but not helping makes me look like an asshole.  Been carrying this conflicting pain for most of the week and it keeps getting worse.  This situation isn’t going to be over any time soon too.  Could take a year for it to clear and even allow me to speak about it plainly.

One thing that I’m coming to realize is that this whole situation has really damaged my ability to trust others.  I’ve noticed that I’ll be fine with people until they reach a certain level of closeness.  Then, I start getting twitchy and certain actions cause me to think they’re going to turn on me like those who demonize me.  It sucks because I still have a sense of loneliness, but also a fear of getting close.  Part of me is coming to terms with the fact that I feel safer at a distance from others, which means I’m never going back into the dating pool.  Perhaps a shallow thought, but there is always that flicker of desire for companionship.  To think, I’m trying to write a happy, positive hero while suffering from this level of emotional agony.

I wish I could go into more details, but I’m sure some people will figure it out.  Either way, I can only talk about my own emotions and generalizations.  To be fair, there’s been people telling stories about me to cause pain in a few areas of my life.  Starting to think hermits are onto something.

Goals of the week:

  1. Celebrate birthday with son.
  2. Try to write chapter 3 of Darwin & the Deadlands Queen.
  3. Rest up.
  4. Try to emotionally recover from this week.
  5. Accept that I probably won’t considering the situation.
  6. Take walks for Pokémon and rest.
  7. Try to work a little more on Coven of the Gray.
  8. Make packing list for father/son trip in August.
  9. Check out parks in Finger Lakes for one of our outings.
Posted in Goal Posts | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Knowing Your Character And Action Scenes

Posted on July 24, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

(Originally posted on March 4, 2015.)

Spider-Man vs Juggernaut (Marvel Comics)

Spider-Man vs Juggernaut (Marvel Comics)

I’ve talked about writing action scenes before and people still ask for some tips.  Today I’m going to give a few that center on knowing your character.  Some might be repeats from other posts, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it again if you plan on doing a lot of action.

  1. You really need to know the limits of your characters.  The above picture shows that Spider-Man may be strong, but Juggernaut is stronger.  The writer/artist know how to work such a fight without going outside the limits of the characters.  You would lose readers if Juggernaut starts doing nimble backflips or Spider-Man hurls the big guy into the next county.  As powerful as they are, each one has a limit.
  2. Not every weapon can penetrate armor.  I thought of this when I caught part of a movie that had two knights fighting.  They had platemail and it ended with a simple slash across the chest.  There was no mark on the other warrior that you could see since he fell face down, but it got me thinking.  How often do authors focus on the weapons and tend to forget the armor?  You can get so caught up in the offense of an action scene that you ignore the defensive side beyond a few blocks.
  3. Being a warrior doesn’t mean you can use EVERY weapon created.  Check out the heroes of Windemere and you’ll see that each one has signature weapons.  If they grab something else then they tend to wield it like their favored weapon.  The idea of a ‘Weapons Master’ is common in fantasy, but tends to be reserved for ancient characters that take the role of mentor.  A young hero like Luke Callindor shouldn’t be able to use more than his sabers, a range weapon, and a few simple things.  Though his level of skill would vary.  Remember that practice and training is necessary for a character to develop even if they’re a natural.
  4. If you describe a character as having long legs then kicking might be more useful than punching.  I always wonder why some fight scenes exclude any moves from below the waist.  If the character is a skilled fighter then they you can believe they would play to their strengths.  Powerful and long legs shouldn’t be ignored.  I’m not talking only kicks to the head too.  Injuring an opponent’s legs will slow them down, so shots to the knees and ankles should be considered.
  5. Height, weight, girth, etc. is something that I try hard to remember.  Case in point, a halfling or gnome is a shorter target.  A taller warrior would have to stab down, swing low, and alter their fighting styles to handle a ‘below average’ height.  The trade off is that shorter characters need to find ways to reach more vital areas on their enemies, which is where stealth and range come into play.  Yet, there is another side of this and that’s allies remembering this fact.  There’s a fight scene in Prodigy of Rainbow Tower where Nyx and Nimby are back-to-back.  Nyx takes advantage of having a shorter ally and ducks high strikes without worrying about Nimby getting hit.  Same goes for archers being able to shoot over shorter allies.

Those are what came to mind and I’m sure there are more that I forgot.  I’ll probably revisit this if I can think of any others.  As usual, I’m always up for suggestions and questions that can create other posts.

Posted in Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Poetry Day: The Prismatic Laugh

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

(Laughter is essential to living.  So many varieties and uses too.)

Such a simple sound

With a multitude of names

The flirty titter

The polite chuckle

The friendly guffaw

The maniacal cackling

The drunken belly-laugh

More names come to mind

All of them the same

Yet undeniably different

Each one a laugh

As unique as a snowflake

High-pitched crowing

From an uncontrollable friend

Contained chortling

From a snobby observer

Birthed by one event

Over our years

Of hearing many forms

Laughs of nervous fear

And flowing joy

From coughing wheezing

Of old men on their benches

To drooling screeches

Of babies in their cribs

A man begins to wonder

To the purpose

Of such a simple thing

With all its varied forms

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Author Stigmas and Stereotypes

Posted on July 22, 2026 by Charles Yallowitz

(Originally posted March 5, 2015.)

Edgar Allan Poe Ale Poem

Edgar Allan Poe Ale Poem

As I lay here resting and nursing whatever this malady is, I have been answering comments and thinking.  (Add-on: I really do get sick a lot.) One thing my mind wandered off to was the various stereotypes about authors.  We drink, we’re eccentric, we’re sensitive, we’re aloof, etc.  Then my mind wandered to humor and that April 1st is a month away.  I’m not a prankster though, so I have to make people laugh differently.

This is going to be simple.  List an author stereotype in the comments and I’ll use it to make a fun, cheeky post on April 1st.  Honestly, the two have very little to do with each other, but that’s the first open day I have on my schedule.

So, what strange things have you heard people say about authors?

Add-On: The first time I made this post, people listed the following:

  • Authors make a lot of money.
  • Authors make no money.
  • Live on coffee.
  • Everyone an author meets is turned into a book character.
  • Authors are wasting their time.
  • Authors are alcoholics.
  • Author brains are wired differently.  (We’re nuts.)
  • Authors are lonely introverts.
  • Authors publish and sit back to do nothing for promotions.
  • Master procrastinators.
  • Can only write when isolated.
  • Messy, gross, and sleep-deprived.
  • Anti-social, rude, zones out, and asks personal questions.

So, I wonder if anything has changed.

Posted in Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments