Ever since my first novel was accepted for publication, I’ve had a self-imposed deadline on completion of my second: the finished manuscript must be in my agent’s hands by the same day the first novel ships. That day arrives on November 5.
With a little over three months to go, I’m entering the home stretch, the final push to make that deadline. There’s been a lot of prep work leading to this point, along with a completed rough draft and a lot of piecemeal rewrites since the draft was finished. Now everything is in place, I’m ready to drive for the finish. But I need a plan. Diversions, distractions and delays will be a constant threat.
World War II has been part of my background research, so it was probably natural for me to think of all the research and prep work as being like the Allies assembling all their forces and laying all their plans ahead of the invasion of Normandy. The war that happens in my story doesn’t go that way, but as I was looking at my final revised map it idly occurred to me that if I imagined a fictional version of D-day happening there, I could actually line up landmarks on the way to the bad guys’ capital with plot points in the story.
Eureka! If I imagine my writing of the story’s final draft as an allied push into the heart of the villain’s domain, then that’s how I stay on schedule and on point: I have my invasion plan, and I have to stick to it.
So here is my metaphor for the next three months of writing:
The Invasion Plan
The illustration shows a section of my world map, with all needless or story-spoiling detail removed. The green is the island where my good guys’ capital city is, and the red is the hostile nation of my villains, with their capital city there to the east. Again, no invasion like this is any part of the actual story: I’m just using their geography to plan the next three months.
At each step of the campaign, if I get there early, all well and good— but I must get there by the planned date.
D-day, when the invasion will launch, is August 1. I still have some loose ends to wrap up in my world building and background details, but that’s the kind of thing that will drag on forever if I let it (there are always interesting new details to think of). So I’ve got one last week to finish up. On the evening of July 31, I have to stamp “finished” on my notebooks, print all the artwork, finish that last book on World War II, and be ready to start writing in the morning.
D-day, August 1: crossing the channel (remarkable how well that fits the real D-day) to establish a beachhead at point A represents revisions to act I of my story. This part of the draft is in pretty good shape, and should need only minor polishing and fat-trimming, so I’m allowing it one week. I have to be ready to break out of the beachhead by August 7.
Moving inland from point A, August 7: the mountain pass at point B is the next objective, but first the territory west of the mountains has to be secured and cleared of enemy forces. This represents rewrites on the first half of act 2 of the story, which in some descriptions of story structure is called the Wanderer phase. It’s when the hero (and the readers) are learning their way around the world of the story. It’s where I’ll need to bring in the right amount of new worldbuilding detail.
A strategic balance is required in this phase: if the army tries to cover every last bit of the western territory, they’ll get bogged down and never reach their next objective. If they don’t cover enough, they won’t have what they need to go on. Avoiding both perils, my invasion force has to cover the required ground, and reach the mountain pass at point B by September 1.
Into Enemy Territory, September 1: through the mountain pass at point B, the army drives for the enemy capital. In the story, this represents rewrites on the second half of act 2. The Wanderer phase is over and the story needs to be moving straight toward its goal here. This section of my draft needs mostly cutting, and minor revisions to make it consistent with the changes I’ve introduced since the last pass. I have to lay siege to the enemy capital by September 21.
The Bad Guys’ Capital, September 21: reaching point C, the army finds the bad guys entrenched and ready to defend their capital. The army may have stopped moving at this point, but only because the final goal is right in front of them. But the enemy troops are entrenched to defend their capital, so the final push will be a difficult slog. The story at this point is moving fast toward its conclusion, but I expect the writing to be hard going: act 3 is where my rough draft really fell apart, and the most work is needed. Although I’ve done a lot of work on it since that rough draft, the whole section still looks like a patchwork quilt and probably a full rewrite with no cutting-and-pasting from what went before. The invasion plan allows all the way until November 1 for the siege to succeed.
V-W Day, November 1: Victory in Writing day! The enemy collapses, the army takes the capital, the rewrites are finished. The final days until the November 5 deadline are given to mopping up operations.
War Correspondents: accountability is a big part of keeping the invasion plan on schedule, so war correspondents will of course be traveling with the army and sending reports back to the home front. Look for progress reports to be posted here now and again over the coming weeks.
