Wednesday 8^th July 2020

Today I went over a big action chapter. I love writing action and I think it’s one of my strengths as a writer. Having experience with combat probably helps more than I know, but a lot of it stems from being told as a child that it was impossible to write car chases.

I can write car chases.

In terms of actual work, this chapter is pretty difficult. Whereas most of this draft borrows from one previous draft or another and most of the work is essentially continuity… this one is a Frankenstein of a chapter.

The bulk of the chapter comes from one draft, but I need to insert a character from another draft. This means there’s a big chunk in the middle of this chapter coming from a completely different draft.

And it’s not easy to align. These two drafts come from different parts of the novel. In one draft this is where the characters have been introduced whereas in the other, we’ve already met them. Motivations are established here in one draft, elsewhere in another.

This scene is important for progressing antagonist character arcs. Remember those placeholder corkboard cards I added to remind me… this scene has several next to it.

There’s also protagonist work needing to go on. I need to move the protagonist’s character arc along, although in one draft it moves a lot further, and therefore needs to be scaled back.

I really gave myself a headache with this chapter. A genuine headache!

I’ve managed to merge the two drafts and I suppose that might be enough but there’s still part of me that’s still not happy with the chapter.

But I have such a banging headache, I need to walk away and look at it again tomorrow.