One Down, Two to Go

Last night I finished the chapter that had been causing my block. The characters are motivated and and moving, and their final goal is in sight. According to my original outline, there's only two more chapters until I'm done with my first draft. I don't foresee myself having to stretch it out to more than two chapters, but there's still a lot of material to cover.

This whole thing started as a project for National Novel Writing Month. I knocked out 50,000 words, knowing that I still had a long way to go. I had estimated the book might come to 100.000 words. As of this point, I'm almost at 71,000 words. I'm thinking now I might end up closer to 80,000 by the end. Though future drafts might inflate that.

One thing I've been thinking about the last couple days is whether I should adjust the tone. The novel has elements of a heist, or caper, story, though I haven't actually written it as such. Most notably, our heroes' plan isn't all that complicated.

That is one thing I'm probably going to spend the most time on in the second draft. As I wrote it, the characters were pretty reluctant to go with the plan I'm currently writing. This is because the author was reluctant to go ahead with the plan. However, I couldn't think of anything better. In future drafts, I'm either going to have to seriously rework the plan, or come up with a better plan.

Another thing I plan on working harder on in future drafts is the SOD's interactions with other people. Or rather, their lack thereof. It occurred to me as I worked on this chapter that the SOD exists in a vacuum. No matter where they go, or how many people are around them, they only talk to each other. I was focused on fleshing out the heroes' personalities, and their relationships with each other. I focused on it so much that I forgot to have them talk to other people. Their biggest interactions with others are with people who are shooting at them. And while that's exciting -at least I hope it is- it doesn't lend itself to conversation.

But those are for further down the line. Right now, I have to focus on the completion of the SOD's first mission. In a lot of ways, the part I'm working on now is the hardest part of the book. Everything before was prelude to this moment, and I have to sell it. Even if I do rewrite the plan, I'm probably going to keep most of the chapter I'm about to start, and likely all of the one that comes after. It's exciting, scary, and daunting. I just hope I do myself justice.

-E. Maxfield Meon