Part 3: Outlining & The First Draft
The Most Important Thing I've Ever Ignored
Introduction
Now we come to the most terrifying part of this series. Not for you, but for me. As much as I’d love to show you a pretty, nearly finished draft right from the start, doing so would be neither honest nor helpful. You need to see what my writing looks like at its weakest in order to understand both how I make decisions as I write and how I refine these choices in the next draft. You’ll probably have noticed that I’ve combined my first draft and my outline. For me, they serve the same purpose: helping me figure out the general shape and content of the story. I’ll likely jettison much of what I come up with here, but that doesn’t mean that this draft is useless. I think of it as the writing equivalant of concept art. It lets me try out different ideas without committing to any of them. The draft I’m going to share with you is almost completely untouched. I fixed a couple of typos and obvious errors here and there, but that’s about it.
However, before I start publicly embarrassing myself, there are a few things I’ll need to figure out first:
Where do I Start?
There are two major points where this story can begin:
I could start with the protagonist’s arrival at the abandoned fort. There’s something really eerie about marching into a silent, abandoned place you expect to be bristling with enemies. Is it a trap or is it really, truly abandoned? My only concern is that there might be too much content there for a short story. Most of my stories are centered around a single scene, with a short epilogue at most. I’ve seen short stories defined as anything up to 5,000 or even 7,500 words, but mine tend to be more like 2-3,000. If I ever decide to make it a novelette or novella I might start the story here, but I think it might be too much otherwise.
Alternately, I could start with the interrogation scene and slowly draw out the story of finding the fort abandoned as part of it. The danger here is that if most of the story is just two guys talking (or three, if I bring in the commander), it might not have the same impact as the first option. However, it has the benefit of emphasizing how the characters relate to each other much more. It would make a much better character study than the first option, and I do enjoy a good character study. The real question is if I have the skill to make this kind of encounter genuinely scary. It could easily fall flat if I don’t.
So, two different options, both with pros and cons. Either of these could be interesting, so there isn’t really a right or a wrong answer. I’m leaning towards option 2, so I’ll probably try that first and then go back to option 1 if it doesn’t work. Writing fiction involves a lot of trial and error, but if you read and write enough horror short stories, you’ll start to have a sense of what works and what doesn’t. I hate to say it, but for me, it’s often just vibes. I’ll get a feeling if something isn’t working, even if I don’t know exactly why. This is one of the many reasons beta readers are invaluable, particularly if they’re other writers. They can often pinpoint issues and give advice on how to fix them. We’re a long ways off from needing beta readers for this project, but it’s always good to have a few people you can call on when you need them.
Characters, Redux
At this point I have a decent idea of my main character and a very rough idea of the other characters. It’s useful to consider the dramatic purpose each secondary character serves before starting, but their personality and goals can be figured out during the draft. Short stories can get crowded if there are too many characters, so your secondary characters need a reason to be there, even if it’s a minor one. In our sample story, the captive soldier is there to explain (parts of) the central mystery of the story. The commanding officer, who I’ll probably include, is there to provide additional tension and an alternative perspective. It also just makes sense for him to be there because the captive may have valuable information.
Also on the topic of characters, I do typically name at least my main character before I start, even if their name never comes up in the story. It humanizes them and reminds me to treat them as an individual and not just a plot device. I usually look for names that are somewhat common for the time and place but not generic. Sometimes I’ll consider the meanings of names as well, but they shouldn’t be so obvious that it spoils the illusion of their being a real person (e.g. Bella Swan, whose name literally means “beautiful swan”). I’ve been thinking of my MC as a Friedrich since early on in this project. It’s a solid German name that was definitely used in the 18th century. Sometimes I’ll give my characters last names too if I think it’s necessary, but I’ll skip this for now. He’s probably just going to be called “Lieutenant” within the story itself anyway.
I don’t usually name secondary characters right at the beginning, since their personality is less on display than the MC’s. Instead, I’ll use the placeholder [name]. In this case, Colonel [name]. He’ll probably get a last name partway through. I’m not sure if the captive will ever get a name in the text, although I might come up with one for him as well.
Point of View
The last major choice before I begin the draft is which POV to write it in. There are four options to choose from, although one of them (second person) feels way too much like a choose-your-own-adventure story for me to take it seriously. Feel free to use second person if that’s the vibe you’re going for, but I’ve never read a second person story that doesn’t sound at least a little silly.
The other options are:
First Person: Generally my favorite. I like the immediacy and the sense that it’s a real person telling their own story. The difficulty of first person is making sure that your narration sounds plausible for the viewpoint character, especially when writing historical fiction. This may sound very obvious, but a character who is ostensibly from decades or centuries ago shouldn’t have the same sensibilities, morals, or taboos that you do. They also won’t use the same slang, references, or manner of speaking. This also applies if you write a contemporary story from a perspective unlike your own, which most writers do at some point or other. The only downside of using first person here is the slight awkwardness of writing a story in English from the perspective of someone who barely understands English. Hopefully the reader can suspend their disbelief.
Third Person Limited: I like this one as well. It combines the immediacy of first person with the broader perspective of third. It’s especially useful for stories with more than one POV character. Having two or more first person narrators quickly gets confusing. I’m leaning towards first person on this specific project, but I’ll keep this option open.
Third Person Omnicient: While I’m personally kind of terrible at this POV, if you love describing everything in great detail and want a peek at what every character is thinking, this might be the perspective for you! The downside is that it can make the reader feel detached from the events of the story, which can be a big drawback for a genre like horror.
I’m going to try first person, but I can always switch perspectives if needed.
Writing a First Draft/Outline
I usually write the first draft as quickly as possible, even though I know it will be a hot mess. Sometimes I’ll even write it as a synopsis if needed. It will suck. That’s OK. Typically, I have a starting scenario but only a vague notion of how it will end. The best way I’ve found to explore an idea is to write it, even if that idea never sees the proverbial light of day again.
Here are the first few paragraphs of the draft:
I knew what I was being summoned for before I ever reached the Colonel’s quarters. I hadn’t seen the captive myself yet, but it was all the men could speak of– the wild man, the madman ranting to himself in a language none of us could understand. I had been [doing other stuff] when he had been captured, if captured was the best way to describe it. From what I had heard, he hadn’t put up a fight, had merely shouted at the men who took him with tears streaming from his face. Everything about the situation was wrong somehow, from the days of marching in the wilderness on what was barely a deerpath to the way we found the fort this morning, silent and deserted save its one single occupant. I tried not to show how much the place affected me. I needed to set a good example, and anyways, I hated to appear weak. As the two guards ushered me into the room, I wondered if we were all doing the same thing. All pretending that we had the situation under control.
The room was the largest of the officers’ quarters, but seemed more cramped because of all the books and maps that were crammed into every available space. All the detritus of some other man’s life. The space smelled of him too, a not unpleasant scent of old paper and boot blacking [check], with some lingering scent of [cologne?] I wondered who he was and whether I might ever meet him in the flesh. I glanced over the fine little library amassed here, then brought my attention to where it belonged, and why I had been brought here.
The captive had been cleaned up a little before being brought here, I guessed, but as I drew closer I could still smell a whiff of filth upon him. From what I heard, he had soiled himself for lack of space to move about where he had been manacled. He was a big man, as many of the colonists were, but very thin indeed. I wondered how long he had been chained up as he was and for what reason. There were fresh bandages around both of his wrists, but he had been tied to the chair by other means so that the rope wouldn’t rub against the wounds. A small kindness that nonetheless surprised me. Colonel [name] was seated across from him, and only lessened his habitual scowl a little when I came in.
“Lieutenant.”
“Sir.”
“You speak English, do you not?”
It’s not exactly gorgeous prose, but it gives a lot of information about the plot, setting, and characters in a short period of time. I’ve established two points of potential conflict here. The first is the mystery of the fort. The second is the more mundane anxiety of being put on the spot by a commanding officer. There’s some characterization woven in there too. Friedrich’s not wanting to appear weak, his being momentarily distracted by all the books, and the fact that the colonel thought of him specifically for this task. There’s a bit of characterization for the colonel as well. His brusque way of addressing Friedrich is contrasted with his decision not to bind the prisoner where the manacles had previously injured his wrists. Whether this is kindness or pragmatism remains to be seen.
I also put in some some decently vivid description, despite that being something I struggle with. I like the part about the room smelling like its missing occupant. There’s something eerie about that. I threw in the part about how the prisoner smelled mostly as a nod to realism. Gross, but hard not to notice.
The next section is where I’ll establish another problem: Friedrich can read and write English decently but only understands it a little when spoken. The trickiest part will be making sure the language barrier rachets up the tension rather than being comedic. People misunderstanding each other can be very funny, but I’m hoping that the tone of the piece will help cancel this out.
There it was, just as I had feared. I could read English fairly well and write it passably. That was true. But most of my attempts to communicate with the colonists had gone poorly; they usually regarded me with at best an ingratiating cautiousness and at worst outright hostility. I once nearly got in a fight with a big, surly fellow I had been trying to ask directions of. If I had not stepped back and half-drawn my sword, I have no doubt he would have tried to clobber me. I avoided conversing with most of the men after that; too many seemed to be looking for an excuse to prove themselves and I preferred not to give it to them.
“A little, sir. I write it better than I speak, though.”
Best to be honest, I thought, but it was clearly not what he wanted to hear. He was probably cursing the fact that we hadn’t been able to secure a proper translator [check - was this an actual position?], so he had to make due with just me.
“See what sense you can make of him. Do what’s necessary to get him talking again.”
The prisoner had been silent this entire time, as if hoping to go unnoticed. Perhaps he had worn himself out with all the screaming, but the way he eyed the colonel and the bruise across his face made me doubt it. I took a stray piece of paper from the writing desk and rummaged around for a [pencil?]. It already had a few lines of writing at the top in a cramped hand, and it occurred to me that the answers we sought might already be there. But surely Colonel [name] had thought of this as well. I looked up at him inquiringly but he shook his head.
“There’s not much in there, other than the lines you’re holding. Some of the letters seem to have made their way into the fireplace, based on the fragments I’ve found. Everything else must have been taken with him. It seems we were expected.”
Only by their commander, I thought. The rest of the place seemed to have been deserted in a hurry. Mouldering food still sat half-eaten before disarranged chairs, as if they’d been interrupted mid-meal. I looked over the paper again, but the words were strange to me. Not English. I was somewhat certain of that, at least. I didn’t think it was French or Latin either. The script was strange too, so that I could not even make the letters out. When I looked up again, the prisoner was watching intently, his eyes fixed not on me but on the paper I was holding. He said something then, but so quickly that I couldn’t make out any of it. We both glanced over at Colonel [name], albeit for different reasons.
Here’s where the plot veered off in a direction I didn’t expect. Friedrich’s rummaging around in the desk made me realize I had a potential issue: since he reads English much better than he speaks it, why can’t he just bypass the prisoner entirely and read whatever’s in the desk? This seemed much less interesting, so I needed a reason why he couldn’t do that instead. The obvious answer was that he didn’t find anything relevant in the desk, but if everybody disappeared suddenly, there wouldn’t have been a chance to empty it out… unless the commander knew what was going to happen ahead of time.
This is a completely different story than the “door to another world” plot I had been mulling over, but I actually like it better. I think I’m going to take it in a more occult direction (hence the unreadable script) and see how that works out. What exactly happened to the missing men I haven’t decided yet. Maybe there’s some kind of dark ritual that can only be done in this specific place, or that’s greatly amplified by it being done here. I also have to account for this other commander now, since his fate might be different from his subordinates’. Also, why was someone left behind? I don’t know, but hopefully I’ll find out soon.
“He’s speaking too quickly for me, sir. If I may, I’m going to see if he can read and write.”
The colonel waved his hand in a gesture of do what you will, so long as you find out something.
I then carefully wrote on the paper I had found: Can you read this?
The man had been speaking again while I did this, but I only caught a few words here and there—”he” and “you” and something else that I thought might be “return.” I shook my head to try to show I didn’t understand, but this only seemed to make him more agitated. I held out the paper in front of him, but he recoiled from it as if he’d been struck. This surprised me enough that I looked at it again to see if I’d written anything threatening by mistake. But no, even if the grammar might be a little disjointed, I was certain that the words said roughly what I meant them to say. But there was the other writing as well. I showed him the paper again, this time pointing at the unknown lines and shrugging, so as to ask if this was what he was troubled by. He nodded emphatically, then mimed ripping up the paper as best he could with his arms tied by his sides. I was somewhat reluctant to do as he asked, but I did put aside the offending page and find another scrap—this one smaller but fully blank. I wrote the same thing again and showed it to him. Again he nodded, but I saw him steal a worried glance back at the other sheet, as if it might scuttle away on its own. This was still encouraging, though. I added to the page Can you write as well? and showed it to him. This time he spoke, a no that even Colonel [name] understood.
“He might be lying,” the latter said flatly.
“Perhaps, sir,” I replied. “but it seems strange to lie about one and not to the other. And he hasn’t seemed unwilling to speak.”
“How much do you understand of what he says?”
“Not as much as I’d like. A few words here and there.”
He sighed, and I knew I had greatly disappointed him. But I was not an interpreter and it seemed foolish to pretend as if I was. However, I was the best that he had, and, with the nearest town at least a week’s travel through the worst roads I’d ever seen in my life, probably the best he would have for a long while.
“Ask him where the others went.”
I wrote down his question, then added Please speak slowly so I can understand you. He hesitated and seemed to be considering his words carefully.
“The woods.”
“The woods?” I thought I must have misunderstood. but he nodded again when I said this.
What does that mean? I wrote.
Again he considered this for a time.
“He took them to the woods.”
He mimed marching.
Who did?
He said something I didn’t understand, then pointed at Colonel [name] and then at himself.
Your… I tried to think of their word for colonel. It wasn’t like our word, I didn’t think, but I couldn’t quite recall. …your leader-officer? I tried instead.
“Yes.”
“What is he saying?” asked the Colonel.
I relayed what I had been told.
“Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“I think so.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If they had marched somewhere else, we would have seen either them or their tracks. We saw neither. Ask him again. Listen more carefully this time.”
I winced a little at this reproof, wishing that there had been anyone else more capable of this task than I was.
This is what I originally wrote, but I don’t like the last few lines where the colonel disbelieves everything. There’s some drama, but none of the mounting dread that this story should be starting to build by now. It’s much more interesting to give him some idea of why this fort was built here. He may already have suspicions as to what happened as well. As I progress into the next section of the story, there are a few more things to consider. What was the ritual designed to do? Was it actually successful? Also, was the American commander following someone else’s orders or did the Continental Army accidentally put the worst possible person in charge? The text may never explicitly answer these questions, but I should probably have a decent idea of them behind the scenes.
Answering all this can feel a bit intimidating, but I can always change it later if I don’t like what I originally came up with. I may change my mind a few times before I get to the final draft. It’s part of why it takes me so long to finish anything.
I’m going to restart that last section but change the colonel’s reaction.
“Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“I think so.”
“Make sure.”
You say that he took them to the woods, yes? I wrote. Could you tell me what happened?
I felt a little silly showing such politeness to a traitor, but he had shown no resistance or anger whatsoever towards me, only the skittishness of a man whose mind teetered on the precipice and needed only a stiff wind to toss it over. I expected the violence of his fellows, for I was well-trained in how to deal with that. But how did one deal with a man so broken that he made no attempt to hide the truth from his very enemies? Did he not fear us? Or perhaps what he feared was something far worse than anything we could do.
He thought for a few moments, trying to find the words. When he spoke again, it was very slowly, but with a tremble in his voice that I could tell he was trying his best to suppress.
“There is a place nearby, in the woods. Full of stones. Big ones, very old. That is where they went. I saw them. Saw the place once too. They heard his voice, all of them. (Here he gestured at Colonel Ehrhart and then at himself again) Officers and men. They heard and they went. I stayed because I was bound. But I tried to go with them. You can see how—” [make sure this is simple enough that F. can reasonably understand it]
He lifted his bandaged wrists, wincing as he did so.
“---How that left me.”
The Colonel swore under his breath as I translated this to him. There was a slight pallor in his face that hadn’t been there before. It was the first time I had ever wondered if he was afraid.
“Is it possible that he’s lying, sir?” I asked, not because I believed it but because I wished that I did.
“No. He is not.”
He went to the window and looked out, as if looking for the answer to what he might do. The gray winter light was just beginning to fade, and I feared that we had a long, cold night ahead of us. He was silent for what felt like a long time. The minutes stretched between the three of us, even though I knew not much time had passed. When the next question did not come, I hazarded my own.
Why are you speaking so willingly when we are your enemies?
The captive laughed, a high, manic sound that made me shudder, although I didn’t quite know why. It was the mirth of a man without hope, who knows that there is nothing left in the world for him to lose.
“Because there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it now.”
I like this much better, even if I’m not sure how much of this explanation Friedrich could reasonably understand. Having both the colonel (who now has a name!) and the captive react as they do is a clear sign of how terrible the situation is, even if the draft doesn’t express that very well. Colonel Ehrhardt might not know what the ritual does or how to perform it, but he knows that they were sent there specifically to keep something like this from happening and that they arrived too late. I also like it being a betrayal that affected the entire regiment, including the officers. Maybe their colonel called in a bunch of favors to get this assignment, knowing that this was his chance. I doubt anybody else probably wanted it.
How do I bring this story to a close, now that I’ve made these revelations? It depends on a few things: Is there still a threat around, or has it moved on? Is there a way the Hessians can salvage the situation, or are they well and truly done for? The two obvious options are either to have something happen in the room that shows the effects of the ritual or have Friedrich get sent out to investigate the woods and find something horrible there. Something definitely needs to happen, though. The captive may have more to tell, but I can’t have the entire story be nothing but talking. I’ll probably toss the whole thing, including the ending, but I still always try write an ending rather than just quitting when I run out of steam. It builds discipline, plus the process helps me figure out a better ending.
For now, I’m going to skip to a scene in the woods, maybe with Friedrich narrating the last part years later.
We found the clearing not far from the fort itself. Rough-hewn stone pillars encircled a table of the same material, upon which lay a charred body with its knees drawn up to its chest. There was no blood anywhere, but somehow that made it worse. There were only the rough indents of many footprints in the snow, and then a single set that walked off somewhere deeper into the woods. That was all.
As an ending, it leaves a lot to be desired, but I do like the imagery of many sets of footprints merging into one, as if melded into a single person. That’s actually pretty creepy. Many of the questions raised earlier in the draft remain unanswered. Some of them may never be answered, at least not in the text of the story. The story won’t say outright that there was some sort of evil ritual in which the enemy commander was able to absorb the rest of his regiment’s souls (or maybe bodies too?), even if that’s what I’m thinking probably happened. It sounds weird and even silly when I just say it like that, but that’s true for a lot of horror stories. The telling is what makes something scary, not just the idea. It’s being able to build tension so that little by little the reader understands what happened without your ever stating it outright. It usually takes me a few drafts to get to that point. However, it’s absolutely worth the effort if you can pull it off.
What Have We Learned About the Story?
The downside of being a draft discarder is that it often feels like you’ve made no progress at all. You don’t even have a draft to build off of yet. However, that doesn’t mean it was a waste. Now that I know what’s behind the disappearances, I can add foreshadowing right from the beginning. I also have a better handle on who my three characters are and how they’re likely to respond to the situation at hand. Friedrich ended up being a bit more naive and insecure than I expected, while the colonel’s brusqueness makes more sense now that I know the fear behind it. Our captive still needs some fleshing out, language barrier permitting. I can draw on all of this during the second draft.
Next Steps
Now that I know where I’m heading, the next draft should be much easier to get through (and hopefully less embarrassing). This is my favorite part of the process because it’s when I start to get a sense of what the story will look like as a finished product. I hope you’ll join me in a few weeks for…
Part 4: The Second Draft: Refining and Clarifying (Coming 8/24/2026)