Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Floating Chapter

Since my last post about how I was going to finish up my manuscript, something strange happened. I stopped writing. This had happened once before after writing what I felt to be a fantastic chapter. Had I drained the well? I spent a day or two plotting out the intricacies of the story that would fit in to this story and potentially carry over into a second book, and the process in and of itself was rather daunting. I was thinking BIG!!! when what I needed to do was think "doable". So I came up with the plot and then still did not write anything.

Finally last night I started writing. The POV is through a character who so far has only been in a few chapters, has never had a POV chapter before. And yet she is one of the most important characters in the entire story. Actually, I like writing from her point of view. The only issue now is I don't know where the chapter falls within the final eight. So far it's a floating chapter that has no real place, but whose content is paramount to the story. I've never written out of sequence for this manuscript and the idea of it frightens me a little. What if I'm unable to connect the chapters around it? What if my brain won't be able to keep up with all of these intricacies?

I'm not nearly done with the chapter yet and I'm not quite sure where I'm going (I have a vague idea) but it's an interesting experience to write through this character's eyes. It's giving a lot of back story that may prove helpful to the reader, and hopefully will be a surprise. I'll just have to see how it comes out.

2 comments:

  1. I understand the feeling. I recently had my whole story plotted out but I just couldn't figure out the beginning. So I started with the second chapter which is very strange for me! Yet as soon as I had finished the second one I knew what I needed for the first.

    So it always sounds horrible but I would say just let that chapter be once you finish it and move one. As you keep writing it might become clear where it fits!

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    1. I'm finding that to be the case with this chapter. I finished one chapter and then started working on this floating chapter again and now I think I have a better idea of where to put it.

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