This week I have written one-and-a-bit chapters. If I'm being honest with myself, this is rather crap. But hey, bright side and all that, at least it's better than nothing.
So much for last week's excitement about writing Hide and See. This hasn't disappeared completely - I haven't collapsed into a never-ending vortex of writer's block depression - but my enthusiasm for it has diminished a little. I still like my plot and my characters (despite their apparent lack of development) so I'm hoping I can keep pegging away at it, even if it is at a painfully slow pace.
My dissertation contained some fairly action-packed scenes but the story has slowed down a little now. This needs to happen - it would be too much to have a constant state of near-panic - but I can't help but feel a little deflated. Everything's just... quieter. No gunshots, no explosions, no mad-dash escapes through enemy territory. Now it's time for more thinking (hopefully this will help towards characterisation!) and the start of explanations about the new world I'm bringing my character into.
It's not only the change in pace I'm struggling with. I'm also wary about just 'telling' the reader all the background information. Likewise, I don't want to fall into the trap - as I did in earlier chapters - of explaining everything through dialogue.
I'm tempted to write a chapter-by-chapter plan of the rest of the novel. The plan I wrote before covers what happens in the later chapters but is simply a flow chart. I haven't decided how much detail I'll be going into for each part. I'm worried that I might get too involved in the exposition and waffle away until my (imaginary) readers fall unconscious through sheer boredom.
So, is the chapter-by-chapter plan a good idea? Or am I just procrastinating? Delaying the actual writing of the thing?
I miss my writing splurge from August.
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