Dragon’s Kin Outlines

Dragon’s Kin Outlines

A lot of people want to know what an outline looks like.

With Mum’s permission, I’ve uploaded the “original” outline for Nuella’s Dragon (which became Dragon’s Kin and one of the “working” outlines.

The idea for the story came when Mum was thinking that she could include stories from myself and my sister, Georgeanne Kennedy, in the anthology that became A Gift of Dragons. She asked me to write about young Piemur.

The “original” outline, here is a revision of the email response.

When Mum realized that the contract was only for original Anne McCaffrey works, we spent some time back and forth before I realized that Piemur would have been too young for the original story to work but that the story was ideal for young Kindan (whom I’d already introduced as an adult in Dragonsblood).

Here is the working version of the revised outline. As you can see, in []’s we’ve included Kindan’s age so that we remembered to keep track.

You may notice that in both versions, Harper Zist is supposed to die. When it came time to write the book, he refused to be killed!

Remember that outlines, like the Pirates Code, are “more like guidelines.” Mum and I both tend to think that it’s a healthy thing when our characters refuse to follow our lead and do what they think is right.

One Reply to “Dragon’s Kin Outlines”

  1. Todd,

    Great insight into writing process and the history of your 3rd Pass books. So, did your sister draft anything in a similar way? You must tell her to write more. Her short story “Zeus: The Howling” was quite good.

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