I did the first scratch of my outline yesterday. Eighteen scenes – that’ll be a pretty long short story if I keep them all in.

Hopefully I won’t, or the story will turn into another novel, and that really isn’t part of the plan. It will be a good exercise though. I’ll scratch up the full outline until it’s as ready as I think it’ll get, and then I’ll go through it and cut out all of the stuff I don’t think will be needed.

The aim is a story of around 15k words. Currently I have a feeling it’d be at least three times that if I don’t cut things out. So, yes, definitely going to try pruning all the excess scenes – or at least try for some brevity. It’s not like I’m one to get straight to the core of the matter without stopping to smell the flowers or wonder where the butterflies are going…