For readers and writers that might be interested below is my second stage outline for Winter. Winter began as a short that I wrote in response to an early snowfall [Chapter 1]. I then decided to continue it as a serial a month later in response to some brutal weather [Chapters 2-3]. By the time I was done chapter 3 I knew I had the makings of a pretty savage novella and held off until this winter, to finish the piece. I use mood and weather as ‘method-writing’ aids with certain fiction material.
Having reviewed and edited the previous winter’s work I stand 8,500 words into what I expect to be a 22,000 word story. The table of contents below is incomplete, with those chapters that have no subordinate headings not yet written. The prologue, the last three bookmarks of Neptune’s Drink, and the epilogue will not be published online. I will complete Winter and have the entire novella in print by the end of January—unless…
Contents
Prologue: Separation ...8
Chapter 1: Jerome Ronnie Ringgold Thompson ...9
Gearing Up ...9
Neighborly Relations ...15
Hot Chocolate & Cake ...19
Snowfall ...27
Chapter 2: Virtius Maniples ...31
Anno Domini, 43 ...31
The Accursed One ...31
The Counsel of Plutarch ...34
Virgil ...38
Chapter 3: Hasti ‘Five Tooth’ Acine ...42
Anno Domini, 43, Heads ...42
Bloody Snot ...42
Plutarch’s Fortune ...45
Virgil ...49
Chapter 4: Mars’ Speculum ...55
Interlude: Old Deathwind ...56
Chapter 5: Whoreson Plutus ...57
Chapter 6: Aptus the Butcher ...58
Chapter 7: Felix Gore-hog ...59
Chapter 8: Neptune’s Drink ...60
Epilogue: The Butcher in My Sink ...61
Author’s Notes ...62
Winter of Our Kind: Racial Memory in Fiction...62
‘Head in Hand’ ...65
The Butcher in My Sink: The Outline to Winter ...66
