Making It Work

I am making progress on Manuscript #1 (M#1) that I’m pretty happy with. Not in the form of chapters written, but progress that is just as important. Here’s a breakdown of the work done thus far.

I’ve got my story broken down in Scrivener so each chapter is separated. I went through my entire manuscript and figured out where there were gaps in the story. For every gap, I added a new blank chapter and some notes about what that chapter is going to be about and what information it needed. I’ve done this for act 1 and 2 of my story, but I’ve left act 3 alone for the most part. I need to re-write the climax of the story to put my main character in a different place than she is currently. When I rewrite that scene, it’s going to shift the end of the story, but I don’t want to touch any of the ending until I’ve filled in the rest of the story. I need to see the progression of what she does and how she gets to the end, to know how she’s going to handle it and what her reactions will be. The notes are there and ready to go when I am. Or when she is really 🙂

I’ve made progress on my story dictionary. M#1 is a science fiction/dystopian new adult novel. Because the world I am creating in this story is very strict and regimented, I needed to create a file in Scrivener with the terminology and labels for specific things and groups of people, and other information for story continuity. It’s been a great resource already and great for my peace of mind.

I have also been figuring out what’s happening in my story as I go back through it. While I haven’t been in this world for quite awhile, my characters have certainly not been dormant while I was gone. They’ve changed and grown and decided that they have a lot to get through now that I’m back. The beauty of that, is that the things that are going to happen make SO MUCH SENSE to me now. As I unravel where they’re taking me, it makes me understand why things happened the way they did before. I LOVE when that happens. It’s not a thing you can predict or force- it’s that magical moment where everything starts falling in place. But don’t get me wrong. There are still quite a few things where I’m scratching my head asking, why are we doing this again? And no one has an answer yet.

I’m also struggling with a main point in my story. It’s an important point, the reason that the story is happening, and while I know why it’s happening and why it’s important, I haven’t quite figured out how it all goes down and how to show it’s bad. I need to work on crafting the reactions of the world to show why this bad thing, is a bad thing. And show how, when it goes bad, it’s REALLY bad. I’m wrestling with it, but I know that’s an OK thing. When you wrestle and struggle with a thing, it means there’s definitely something there you’re going to get to. I’m just not sure how yet.

How’s it going with what you’re working on? Are you struggling or hitting that magic moment? Or a little of both?

And of course, this work is happening sometimes in my happy writing space after bedtime, but mostly when little hands are around to “help” 🙂

Happy Writing!