Started something new last week and frankly, when I do this I feel rather edgy. Not sure why but finding the place to start can be hard. Once the first few thousand words were down, this time I knew I began in the right place but had to reorganize the rest of the first chapter, I guess you could call it that, or maybe just Part One. What this book involves is four groups of four young adults who set out to cleanse four princedoms of evil and to face the evil dom and He Who Walks With Evil. The story is related from eight viewpoints of these young adults and one very bad guy. Actually when I began, there were three little side groups, but I decided that was too many. What this meant was that I had to realign the segments of Part One. The first view point stayed the same as will the last. There was a good reason for this choice since I needed to get a bit of what the story is about into the first viewpoint character's story.
I suppose I could have started with a this is what has gone before but I don't read them when I buy books that are part of a series. I would rather read little reminders in dialogue or thoughts about what has gone before.
Since this story is five different battles, I decided to do them in a series of one might call them novellas but they really are a continuation of each other. I'm now in the process of redefining the nine segments so that there is some cohesion between the segments. The quartets are each heading to a different destination so I'm showing them on the road and then arriving. Now I could have done five more books to the series but I might never finish them so I chose my present course.
Choosing the course of a book especially when it's part of a series takes some study and floundering around. But i often flounder when I begin a book even though I'm a planner.
Someone on one of the loops I'm a member of was talking about pansters and planners. I think I take the middle ground. I lay out the road map and then let the characters choose the way they want to reach the destination.
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2 comments:
Hi Janet!
You're quite prolific. Is there a special pill you take for that, something I could purchase over the counter maybe? Or does it come naturally?
Wendy, What the magic is that I have all day to write. No children young enough to need escorted anywhere. Grandchildren living afar so the phone and ocmputer are the biggest contact. What I'm doing now is disgorging all the things that floated in my head when I was a mom and a nurse.
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