The Second Interlude

Man, this really was the chapter than never ends. I started with a simple idea, and it kept going and going and going. I had my own personal energizer bunny by the end. This chapter taught me one main lesson: stories have a mind of their own. I'm sure I knew that before, but after this...I realized that I need to do a lot more work on poor Dedrad. He's my least developed character. He needs a little TLC, because he's an important foil for Ash. That and I need to rewrite chapter 1. This has been a long-term project, so naturally my style of writing has changed. Chapter 1 is a little too slap-stick for my liking. First half stays, second half needs help. I think this is the place where I'll explain the mechanics of my story's world. It's the perfect place for it.

I put a lot of work and research into Dan's chapter. First part, inspirational/fitting songs for the piece. Second part is reference material. My God those knives are beautiful. If I had $2000 dollars of expendable cash, I'd be all over that. Though, I'm pretty sure Canadian customs would have a few choice words about bringing tactical knives over the border.


Dead Inside - X-ray Dog
Enigmatic Soul - Two Steps From Hell
Morrocan Roll - X-ray Dog (and no I don't know why it isn't spelled "Moroccan" aside from the play on words...more rock 'n roll...har)
Lake of Fire - Nirvana

Jay Fisher World Class Knife Maker

I am now OFFICIALLY done one third of my novel. I expect the final product in rough to be around 300 pages by the end at this rate. Take that number and subtract 10-15%. Therefore, we should be sitting around 255-270 pages and 131500 words...which will probably be too much. Lots of editing to be done ladies and gents, though I took a few extra liberties with chapters than I should have. Maybe I'm over-explaining. Meh, it's only version 3 of WMRR (technically 2.5, but we'll say three for the sake of keeping the concept simple).

Chapter 1

I finally finished Chapter 1 rewrite. The ending of the chapter ended up being new material, because of the order change that I made. I think that this format works much better than the one I had before. This way the characters are introduced a little better and I can give the reader a better idea of what's going on. In the previous version the motives and general plot was much more ambiguous. A friend of mine pointed that out to me last summer, so I think this time I finally finished it. I'm on to Chapter 2 now, which was the original Chapter 1. Chapter 3 will be in the same place it always was. I am giving myself until the 30th of January to complete the first five chapters.

Here is the picture of my wall that I was talking about earlier:




Light blue is the main plot points, dark blue is the final segment of the story, purple is any extra notes I have on the plot points, the flags mark possible chapter divisions and the lined dark blue is a timeline. I like to colour code stuff.