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Monday, January 7, 2013

A New Tack

My Dear Friend once advised me to stop comparing my books. Like children, each is different. Each will require different things of me, and each will provide different things to me.

Of course, with all this "different" flying around, I have to wonder when any of it will be the same. When will my book-writing learning curve stop climbing and finally get 'er done, ya know? If past is prologue, never.

My WIP stymied me - again - this weekend. I was doing fine until I switched viewpoints.

TT: I was initially doing fine until I scheduled a social event that got me home after 9, and I had no time to write before bed. I'm now 4 pages behind my writing schedule. A lesser me would give up and start eating potato chips, but a great Bible study teacher once told me when you miss a meal you don't give up eating, so don't give up anything else just because you miss one session.

So I sit down with the laptop to make up for lost time from the various social events, and I switch viewpoints. I'm staring at the screen wondering what event can happen in the time allotted that won't screw up the timeline for anybody else. That's when it hits me. I should be writing these stories independently instead of concurrently.

Concurrently worked for Elementals, but Elementals is a multi-viewpoint tale of two sisters told in the same timeline where they start together, diverge into different events and regroup at the end. When writing, I rotated viewpoints between sisters, and it worked. I don't know why.

I can't seem to do that with 5 viewpoints. It's too complex. I find myself jabbering on with inconsequentials instead of moving the story forward.

TT: Thank you, plotters, for pointing out that if I'd written an outline before I started, I wouldn't be having this problem. If I'd been able to plot an ending, I would have finished the book a year ago. I can't make up my mind.

Here's the new tack: I'll plot and write each viewpoint, starting, I think, with Rhami. He and Caissa would be the "main" characters, but they don't necessarily have to be in the same place at the end. Everybody else can hang from their timelines. Perhaps I'll end up with five novellas instead of a monster novel. At .99 each, it might be worth it.

Why do I do this to myself?

Happy Monday, everybody.

1 comment:

  1. You're braver than I am. Writing multiple POVs gives me the jitters.

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