Journey Of A Novel

chapter files

Back in the saddle again

For over a month now I’ve had plans to write, to get writing and to keep on writing but life got in the way. Nevertheless I followed through tonight and got another 1000 words written.

When I revisited where I had left off I was surprised to find that I had written more than I remembered, and I was happy with what I read over before I started writing again. The flow that I had been in when I wrote before had been good and the ‘all downhill from here’ feeling came back along with a satisfied smile.

The 1000 words that I wrote are for chapter 8.5, well that is what it is called for now while I push on through the last happenings of the narrative to wrap up the chapters. My original plan was for 9 chapters but through the writing of them I began to think it will be 11 chapters for the first draft, and may even make it to 13 chapters or so by the time I finish with the next draft.

Chapter 8.5 is the spilling over of chapter 8 into a new self contained set of scenes that needed to be included in more detail than I had anticipated. On the cycle of the hero’s journey formula this chapter is the hero’s return in a personal sense for the protagonist as they come face to face with the embodiment of who they had been asked to be and who they had failed at being. Beyond this it is also the return to a point of their life where they were a victim and now return as a victor ready to save another from a certain fate, but having to come to realise that all must take their own path regardless of suffering.

Having saved themselves the protagonist hopes to save another but instead comes to terms with the fact that they can only be their own hero and must leave others to also be a hero to themselves and become triumphant in their own lives.

Chapter 8.5 most likely will become chapter 9, I’ll leave the number as 8.5 for now to save confusion chopping and changing numbers along the way. Once I have written to the end and can see what I have to work with I will do a number reshuffle of all chapters.

Unknown Territory

Back on track and into it with a good rhythm and pace – I have finished chapter six. In chapter six I had planned to fit more of my plot in than I managed to so I may write an extra chapter into my original nine chapter plan. With the additions to chapter five along with the extra not in chapter six it might add up to two more chapters making eleven in total. The finer details of this are not important as I press on to finish. Part of the new progress that I have made is letting go of what I think should be happening and when according to what I had planned. My approach to the story has relaxed now as I am writing more and more into unknown territory. Acknowledging this helps with progress, I’m not as concerned about getting this or that part ‘right’ or ‘correct’ according to some plan that I thought that I needed to get work done.

It’s all been stripped back to get it out and get it done. Working in this way I’ve begun to make notes in my writing by highlighting sections to revisit and expand. Also I’ve put points at the beginning of the chapter files to refer to regarding themes, imagery and any other parts to remember.

How the story unfolds and ends is a mystery to me because I haven’t written it yet. With this in mind I want to get the action down and tidy up, polish and rewrite or expand where needed when I have a completed body of work.

Next is chapter seven. Another new character is introduced within this chapter that is pivotal to the protagonists development along with a new scenario that the protagonist has never encountered before. Finally in chapter the protagonist can stop running away from problems, take stock, look at how others live their lives and make choices about who and what they want to be. There will be challenges and adventures of a new kind with the discovery of personal power being the driving theme for this section. What decisions are your own? Why do you think certain things and in certain ways? How does another person’s way of being fit when we try it on for size? These are some of the questions that I want to toy with as subtext, I’ll see how I go.