Years ago I was reading one of Diana Gabaldon’s posts on her blog and she mentioned the shape of the current novel she was working on. My first thought was WTF? Shape?

Yet, as I read on, she told her readers how each of her novels begins to take a shape on. “All my books have a shape,” she says “and once I’ve seen what it is, the book comes together much more quickly…” She goes further to state that “OUTLANDER, for instance, is shaped like three overlapping triangles: the action rises naturally toward three climaxes: Claire’s decision at Craig na Dun to stay in the past, Claire’s rescue of Jamie from Wentworth, and her saving of his soul at the Abbey.”

As her books get more and more complicated, so do her shapes. For instance, her last book, Echo in the Bone, was in the shape of a caltrop. Now, you might be wondering what the hell is a caltrop? Here. It’s a nasty piece of warfare.

But, weapon-shaped books aside, her idea of the shape of her novel got to me. It got the old cogs in my brain turning. See, Diana Gabaldon doesn’t write linearly. She writes bits and chunks of her book in different order, then sets them down, looks at the all, and figures out the shape of her book. It’s a very different way of telling a story but, hey, it works for her. I adore her books and take pretty much every bit of advice that she gives as coming from God’s mouth.

So when she started talking of shapes, it got me thinking.

And imagining what I saw my books as. See, my stories start as (usually) one image in my head.

• For The Fire Inside, it was a man standing there with a sword aflame.
• For Better Together, it was two boys watching cartoons and eating cereal, except one of them is a man. For me, I start with that image and try to figure out what the story is behind it.
• For the newest book that I’m working on, the sequel to The Fire Inside called Black Mirror, it was a man dressed in a jet black motorcycle outfit leaping through a balcony window.

These images are my starting images.

However, as I begin to write the story, another image begins to be created. It’s the finishing image and it is often different than the starting image. It’s never the same subject but something that comes about while writing the book. It’s something that becomes the core image of the book and… the shape of it, if you will.

• For The Fire Inside, it was Jack standing in his bookstore, a book in hand, and wildfire spreading across his eyes. It was the idea of Jack as a regular joe… and also much more.
• For Better Together, it was the drawing (in my mind it’s a very Maurice Sendack-esque piece of artwork) of the ‘Lil Werewolf dancing across the forest. It’s the realization Paul wanting to express boys (and himself) as wild creatures… and, yet, still loving.

Over the past couple of nights, I have been finishing up the second draft of Black Mirror. This has been a tough draft. In many ways, it was the first draft version 2.0 because I had to rewrite a lot of things. The story took on a different form. The first image spawned a more complex story. But the final image, the finished one, the shape of the thing, is starting to grow in my mind. It’s pretty amazing.

And quite frightening.

The motorcycle rider is there. So is Jack. And I can’t tell you who is blacker.

I’m very excited about this book. I can’t wait to unleash it on you, the readers.

I can’t wait to see what you make of it.

For now, I’m going to get back and continue writing. But a question: what’s the shape of your story?