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About 70,000 words into book 3 of Spiritwalker (Cold Steel), I am coming to see two patterns in the larger architecture of the books. One is that they involve travel and movement. The other is that the first two books both involve what I call "turn overs" -- points right about in the middle of the book where a thing turns over within the plot that then propels the book through the second half.
There is also a pattern in the writing, but this is common to all my first drafts, not just these particular books.
Opening is hard. Like sludge. I hate writing openings. They make me feel incompetent. But there always comes a point as I slog forward through things I'm pretty sure have to happen that something truly and utterly unexpected happens, and then I know the book's pulse just started.
Now, that already happened with Cold Steel and I know exactly where.
But the next thing that happens after that is I hit a point where I realize I have to either massively rewrite something in the opening or that I have to move scenes around or jigger them in a big way rather than a small way. When that happens I have to stop where I am, go back, and revise from the beginning up to where I left off. This may happen more than once during the extended process I call a first draft (although by the time I finish my first draft there are portions of the book that have gone through several draftings), but it always happens at least once.
I just hit that point today. I wrote 1850 words at Starbucks and realized I had to take a scene from earlier and move it to where I was, rewriting it to fit the new parameters. Which means something has to go where it was, something that will make where it was a deeper and better and more thematically awesome interaction, with bonus set up for something that is going to happen later.
By the way, you may assume that since I have written 70,000 words I'm almost done with the first draft, but you would be, alas, wrong. My first drafts run really really long, and then I cut as part of revising.
There is also a pattern in the writing, but this is common to all my first drafts, not just these particular books.
Opening is hard. Like sludge. I hate writing openings. They make me feel incompetent. But there always comes a point as I slog forward through things I'm pretty sure have to happen that something truly and utterly unexpected happens, and then I know the book's pulse just started.
Now, that already happened with Cold Steel and I know exactly where.
But the next thing that happens after that is I hit a point where I realize I have to either massively rewrite something in the opening or that I have to move scenes around or jigger them in a big way rather than a small way. When that happens I have to stop where I am, go back, and revise from the beginning up to where I left off. This may happen more than once during the extended process I call a first draft (although by the time I finish my first draft there are portions of the book that have gone through several draftings), but it always happens at least once.
I just hit that point today. I wrote 1850 words at Starbucks and realized I had to take a scene from earlier and move it to where I was, rewriting it to fit the new parameters. Which means something has to go where it was, something that will make where it was a deeper and better and more thematically awesome interaction, with bonus set up for something that is going to happen later.
By the way, you may assume that since I have written 70,000 words I'm almost done with the first draft, but you would be, alas, wrong. My first drafts run really really long, and then I cut as part of revising.