Sunday 19th July 2020

We’re definitely on the homeward straight right now.  I’m now approaching the epic climax of this novel and I’m not expecting a lot of changes needing to be made.

But sometimes, little changes you make can have bigger impact later on and I’m finding this with one of my secondary protagonists.

As you may remember, I moved her introduction much later in the novel.  I felt this strengthened her arc and, to be honest, I feel she’s better for it.

Except now.  There’s a small ‘interlude’ between the main protagonist dealing with a secondary antagonist and the big bad.  It’s a small spanner thrown in the works, designed almost as a palate cleanser ahead of the main action.

It involves this secondary protagonist, and whilst it works for the main protagonist I’m not sure it works the secondary.  It’s not even that it’s out of character, I just think it doesn’t fit in with this cleaner arc.

The point is that I know I can do better.

I’m not sure if other writers are like me, but when I can see the end in sight, there’s a part of me that wants to rush to it.  Whilst this has been the quickest redraft I’ve ever done, I’ve been on a journey with these characters, and I’m ready for it to be concluded.  As a result, I really have to be disciplined with myself not to drop my standards a little.

It doesn’t help that the end of this novel is probably the part that needs the least work.  I can honestly say, that even reaching that stage where you want it to be over, the chapter I’ve just been over is what I feel some of my best writing.  And I tend to be a glass half empty kinda guy when it comes to the quality of my writing, only seeing my mistakes.  Despite having gone over this chapter a hundred times, I still get goose bumps reading it.

Which makes it all the more infuriating.

But needs must, so the plan is to read the following chapter tomorrow where this secondary character arc plays out, and make a decision whether I need to tweak.  In the meantime, I must not be distracted by the end.

Being able to dedicate a lot of time to it this week, it’s very likely it it’ll only be a few days before I’m doing my final read through, even if I have to do some major work here.

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