Because of tearing my hair out.
Urgh!
So, I'm working on the second book of a spec trilogy. The first is the best thing I've written, hands down. I think the second has the potential to be at least as good but...you knew there was a but, right?
I'm maybe a quarter of the way into the book and I'm running into something of a wall about balancing the parts of the story I've got written so far against the direction it needs to go for the trilogy structure to work.
I need to get to the next part of the story, ideally about 3000 words ago, but I don't think it will work without my finishing the groundwork I'm doing now which is going to run at least another 3-5000 words. Perhaps worse than that is the fact that I added a second POV character for book 2 (necessary I think) and keeping the two halves of the story in reasonable time sync is killing me.
Oh, and did I mention that I just went back and looked at my original synopsis and realized I'm into the third chapter that isn't in the outline? Sigh, I need the new stuff for the older stuff to work and the outline didn't actually have enough material to build a book, but damn. I want to write the really cool Russian sorceress stuff now, not the mission set up and emotional infrastructure chapters.
Okay, done whining. I love my job, and there's nothing in the world I'd rather be doing, but some days it really is a job, and a very hard one.
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5 comments:
I can sympathize with the time-sync thing. I've been having a tough time with it off and on in HQ between the two POVs, and it's going to get uglier over the next four chapters.
One thing I have toyed with, but not done yet, it to not being linear 100% of the time in terms of the two POV time-lines. I've seen it done and work elsewhere, but it doesn't feel right for the kind of book I'm doing at present (very immeidate, as you know). Of course, having one of the POVs in first person makes that even harder.
I'm not sure if time flexibility would work for you (or even make things harder), but I figured I'd throw it out there.
Good luck, Kelly.
Thanks Doug,
It's a good suggestion and I've actually thought about it but I don't think it'll work until a bit later in the story once I've got regular communication going between the two storylines and the timescales open up a bit.
Wait! Is this Black School II? Sweet!
If not, still sweet!
Right now I've got no suggestions for ya. I'm in the middle of edits on the WIP and so I feel like a talentless hack that wouldn't have anything useful to say. Catch me next week. ;)
X, this is indeed Black School II, also known as The Eye of Horus. I love it, but it's also irritating me at the moment. Oh, and I'm violating one of the basic business rules of writing by working on the second book of a trilogy without having sold the first one, so my inner idealist and my inner pragmatist are hitting each other with sticks over the whole thing.
I'm about in the same place with the single novel I'm working on. The chapter that has slowed me has so much work to do in order to reconcile what's come before with what must come. I'm making progress, but it's slow.
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