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(The average age was) Nineteen
Feb. 20th, 2010 03:23 amLast time I wrote about writing, I said, "Pitfalls and tsetse flies and angry water buffalo may be lurking in the second half." O, foul flippancy! Little did I know that chapter 15 ("North") was going to be a freaking buzzsaw. When I printed it out and read it, 'way back in mid-January, I found it flabby and directionless and confusing (even to me); it was going in thirty directions in fits and starts, which meant it wasn't going anywhere. Having finished a first draft of the book, I can look back at it now and see that I was trying to build hooks for a lot of plotlines I never ended up using, and they were sort of flopping around limply in mid-air like the tendrils of a flaccid Cthulhu.
In the end, this 24-page chapter took over three weeks (!) longer to revise than I thought it was going to. I ended up splitting it in two (now chapters 18 and 19) and completely re-writing most of it. The good news is that the necessary primrose path unfurled, with a certain amount of espresso-fueled encouragement, fairly neatly in front of me this time; I knew where everyone needed to go. The formerly half-baked scheme my protagonist had come up with could now be called devious and elegant. The chapters expand my themes instead of quarreling with them. But I had a bear of a time getting to that point. My confidence went through the wringer on more than one occasion.
Now, I'm facing the nail-biting prospect of reading the next chapter. Fingers crossed!
Tangentially, here's a question about word choice: Would you be thrown if a story with no connection to our world and history used the word "bedlam" to describe a scene of chaos?
In the end, this 24-page chapter took over three weeks (!) longer to revise than I thought it was going to. I ended up splitting it in two (now chapters 18 and 19) and completely re-writing most of it. The good news is that the necessary primrose path unfurled, with a certain amount of espresso-fueled encouragement, fairly neatly in front of me this time; I knew where everyone needed to go. The formerly half-baked scheme my protagonist had come up with could now be called devious and elegant. The chapters expand my themes instead of quarreling with them. But I had a bear of a time getting to that point. My confidence went through the wringer on more than one occasion.
Now, I'm facing the nail-biting prospect of reading the next chapter. Fingers crossed!
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Tangentially, here's a question about word choice: Would you be thrown if a story with no connection to our world and history used the word "bedlam" to describe a scene of chaos?
