Getting that chapter right

I'm currently working through the early chapters of my second draft of Spirit Quest. The first one works quite well, but the next couple kind of limp through. Especially the second chapter. The tone of this chapter was a bit too light-hearted. I wanted it to be a day-in-the-life of our protagonists, but it turned out to be a bit too slapstick.

I tried rewriting it and streamlined the characters. The scene originally had one protagonist and four secondary characters. Then I thought about these secondary characters, realizing that they didn't add much to the story beyond their appearance. And their appearance, in some places, was just to make sure that my protagonist wasn't talking out loud to herself. I trimmed that down to one protagonist and two secondary characters. The flow was better and I felt the scene really tighten up. But, I couldn't get the right feel, it seemed a little too comedic. And early on in your story, you want to reinforce the style and comedy wasn't were this story was going.

I came back to it and decided to pull it. I rewrote another chapter in a different setting with similar secondary characters, but it spiralled away on me and will probably be used as a short story at some point.

I rewrote the scene again and decided to pull in my other protagonist. That chapter was finally the right fit, or at least I hope it is. Who knows what'll happen to that chapter by the time I finish the second draft. The chapter is multi-purpose, in that it introduces us to both of these characters and gets them to meet each other and leaves seeds for them to establish a relationship.

I find it interesting that readers will never see the other versions (or perhaps will in short stories). And can't help but wonder what kind of cut scenes from our favourite books we'll never get to read?

If a chapter doesn't feel right, try coming at it from a different angle, or character. Review the characters in that chapter. Do they all serve a purpose? Are they all really needed to keep this scene going? Will they ever appear again in the story? And if that doesn't work, put the chapter aside and re-write it from scratch. That's what we writers are supposed to be at, right?

Next Steps After NaNoWriMo?

So, if you were fortunate enough to be among the few who "won" NaNoWriMo (41,940 of 300,000 participants), congratulations! Give yourself three big cheers.

But, if you're like me, you're wondering now what? This year's NaNoWriMo writing project was part of a 90,000 word novel I'm writing, so it might be a little different than you if you've actually written a novel from end-to-end over those 50,000 words.

The next larger step is to create our second draft and there are an infinite number of ways you can go about that. One suggestion is to let some time pass and allow yourself to put some perspective on your work. I tried to do that one year and I found that I had lost a lot of momentum and it took almost half a year for me to really get back into the project.

So, I'd recommend you continue working at it, building off the momentum and euphoria that you currently have. The approach I'm trying is to write a treatment of my story, a synposis, maybe 5-10 pages of everything that has happened in my story. In that compact form, I think I can work with the story structure and identify its weaknesses before jumping into any kind of editing or re-write.

Take time to make sure you have all the pieces in your story in the right place and that every chapter and scene builds towards the climax and drive the plot forward. It can be terribly difficult at times, especially if you're struggling with a scene or chapter that you like, but you also know just doesn't fit. Yank it and come up with a new scene or chapter. You'll be surprised that it'll probably be better than the one you first wrote and will also be a better chain link in the overall story.

Best of luck!

Butcher's Scene and Sequel

The scene and sequel concept is nothing new in fiction and is a great way to ensure structure in your story and to keep it moving. Jim Butcher has refined the process and provided a working frame to set up the scene and sequel structure.

Distilled from these notes: http://www.rkathey.com/94/jim-butcher-on-writing

SCENES
- follow a sub-pattern of stimulus-response: action-response
- where the action happens, where the conflict occurs, and where the consequences begin.

Point of View (PoV) – You tell the scene from the point of view of the person with the most to lose
Character’s Goal – What is the goal of the PoV character? The audience needs to know the goal. The goal is active, immediate, and important.
Conflict – What's stopping the character from reaching their goal? The antagonist should be the conflicting force as much as possible. You should be investing the antagonist's time.
Setback – There are four ways to end a scene: Will the protagonist succeed?
   Yes – BORING!
   Yes/But – Success but there are consequences.
    No – Fails and must get a new goal. Great for showing determination but often leads to hard plot stops.
   No and Furthermore – Not only does the character not succeed but there are new plot complications that arise as the result of the failure. Save this for critical points in the story.

SEQUELS
- happen after scenes
- show the character’s reaction in the following order.
   + Emotion – “Oh my God I’ve been in a car crash!”. Emotion is what you feel first after a traumatic event.
   + Reason
      - Logic – “Am I bleeding?” where the character activates his/her brain to evaluate the immediate situation.
      - Review – “Am I late?” A review of the things that got them to the point of the trauma and the immediate effect of it.
      - Anticipation – “What’s going to happen next? Will the car explode?” Anticipation is the character trying to figure out what might happen next.
   + Choice – What the character decides to do after the event.

The above reactions lead to a new goal and next scene.