I am fed up with starting my blogs posts by declaring how many chapters I've written this week, so this time I'm not going to. I'm taking a stand. So there! That's shown my own brain who's boss.
I pondered in my last blog post the merits of writing a chapter-by-chapter plan for the rest of Hide and See. This week, I did it, plotting out chapters 32-51 in a lovely neat little table. My previous plan - just a handwritten flowchart jobby which didn't have any sense of length/word count etc - fitted in surprisingly well. I was worried I'd have to cut out various chunks in order to get to the point I needed to reach by the end but (so far!) this hasn't been necessary.
Now I guess I have to see how it all comes out when I actually write it. I've done these table-plan-thingies before and have had to alter them mid-story as plots change or my inability-to-shut-up kicks in again. There's lots I need to fit in with the background mythology (how much do I include?) and characterisation (oh how I loathe thee) but I guess it's all a question of balance.
With my vague ideas of a sequel (or is that a whole trilogy my mind is whispering about?) colouring my thinking, I know that there is plenty of opportunity to say less. With the mythology, for instance. My characters - from a plot point of view - can't know everything in the first book, or else what more would there be to discover? And yet I can't leave my (imaginary) readers thinking 'what the bloomin' heck was all that about?' (Because, yes, my imaginary readers are all clones of Dick Van Dyke).
I sometimes wish I had spare wall-space so that I could hang a pinboard, to plot out my story in a well-organised and coherent manner. Then I realise that could never happen for the same reason as it hasn't happened: every spare patch of wall is, and probably always will be, covered with bookshelves.
I bought a new book today and I didn't even leave the house. Oh Amazon, why are you so easy to use, even for a dinosaur like me? And where shall Shiny New Book go? Probably on one of the growing floor-piles now that there is no room on the shelves. Who needs to see the carpet anyway?
I've struggled with plotting throughout writing my book, like you I can make a plan, but then if I come up with something better the whole plan has to change! I'm glad it's progressing well though. I've finished a reasonable draft of my book and am at the rewrite/editing stage. I'm hoping to get it out to agents next year, by which time I will hopefully have started a book in the same universe but with different characters. I'd love to see where your seer has got to!
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