Yeah, that’s right. \u00a0Believe it or not, I barreled through about 13,837 words today. \u00a0That’s thirteen THOUSAND, not thirteen hundred.<\/p>\n
Now, only about a thousand of that was new stuff \u00a0that I was writing. \u00a0Most of the rest of it was rearranging scenes that I’d already written, touching them up only a tiny bit. \u00a0I did merge a couple of scenes, delete or tone down some stuff, etc.<\/p>\n
So really, about 90% of my work today was just revision, and not even really hardcore revision at that. \u00a0I’m still treating this version of my story as a rough draft; I’m not taking the time to polish things up and fix the known minor problems. \u00a0Really, I’m just running through what I’ve already written to make sure I have what I need to get past the roadblock I hit back in April.<\/p>\n
The biggest thing I’m doing right now is rearranging scenes into entirely new chapter arrangements. \u00a0This seems to be a problem everytime I write a story with multiple viewpoints: I never seem to get the prelude-rising-falling-resolution-cliffhanger action that good chapters have. \u00a0I write scenes as they come to me, in a progression that seems natural at the time, but once I take a step back, I find that things work better on the macro-level if I complete rearrange which scenes come where in the narrative.<\/p>\n
Part of that is that sometimes I just need to write a few paragraphs (or even a few scenes) just for me to figure out what’s going on, plotwise or settingwise. \u00a0What I’m finding with Bringing Stella Home<\/em>\u00a0is that I’m taking scenes from James and Danica’s viewpoints and moving them up a chapter or two, cutting out the filler in the middle.<\/p>\n I’ve got a long way to go before I master the art of good chapter structure. \u00a0Or perhaps it’s something that I do better when I’m revising, not drafting. \u00a0After all, I think I’m more of a discovery writer than a firm outliner. \u00a0Perhaps I write in a sort of puzzled up everywhere kind of way, and then do best when I don’t put all the pieces together until after I’ve vomited them all on the page.<\/p>\n I am getting more excited about this story, though. \u00a0Taking a step back and looking at things from a more global perspective has really re-energized me. \u00a0I can see the major turning points, and that helps me to build up for them much better.<\/p>\n I’m only worried that the “midpoint” is going to be somewhere around the 3\/5ths mark, not the halfway mark as it should be. \u00a0One of my goals with this book is to see if I can hold to the three act structure<\/a> and whether that makes my story any stronger. \u00a0But, according to the website, the midpoint occurs “approximately” at the halfway point, so I guess I can fudge it.<\/p>\n Also, the midpoint is supposed to be where the main character hits rock bottom. \u00a0Hee hee hee…oh, he will. \u00a0He will.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Bwahahahaha!!!<\/p>\n In the meantime, you owe it to yourself to listen to this:<\/p>\n