Day Eleven - 21,721 words and counting

This month, I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

Something occurred to me yesterday--After five chapters and a prologue, I've really covered less than 36 hours worth of in-world time. Now, each day's part takes me between an hour and a half to two hours to write. So after ten days, I'm averaging approximately one hour of writing time to every two hours that pass in the novel.

Dunno what that means, but I thought it was cool.

That's all about to change, though, in not too long a time. For the next several chapters, we're going to be following Bryony's experiences pretty closely. Right now things are still pretty much in transition for her, but once I can get her settled into a pattern, I will be able to skip forward in time as I like.

Take for example the first Harry Potter novel. We tracked pretty much every waking minute of Harry's life from the time he got onto the train at Platform 9 3/4, all the way through his first day of classes. That established his environment and the pattern that his time would take, and we were then able to skip forward to the next "event," and allow the reader to understand that the intervening time had passed in a way much like what we had already seen.

In other words, Rowling first created his environment, then showed us Harry's place in it, then allowed our imaginations to supply the details while she got about the business of telling her story.

I'm trying to do very much the same thing, albeit in a less desirable atmosphere. So far, I've described how Bryony came to be at the market, and now we need learn what her place there will be. I've got a pretty specific plan all the way through chapter 9, with a pretty clear idea of the contents of chapters 10-12.

In other words, my estimate is that by the time we reach the end of chapter 12, or thereabouts, we will no longer be following Bryony's every waking move. That will be a relief in a lot of ways! There's a lot of things you have to keep track of as an author when you're following someone so closely. Meals. Bathroom breaks. Tiredness level. Sleep.

I'm not saying that those things can't be interesting, and can't be made to serve a purpose in the story, but they start getting old after a while. As a real life person, I rather enjoy going to sleep every night. But I sure don't want to read about it My own sleep is wonderful; someone else's is boring.

So I'm looking forward to skipping forward in time, and leaving all the tedium of meals and sleep out of the picture, except where it serves the story. But before I can do that, we have to see what an Average Day will be for Bryony, and that'll probably take another 15k or 20k words to accomplish.

But now we're up to the first confrontation between Bryony and Gessica, not counting the mask scene. I intentionally made Bryony play a very passive role here. Remember, she had just been struck several times, and was cut off from Elma, her only source of support. I wanted her to have some backbone, but not be particularly aggressive. This will not be their last meeting, after all. Gotta save something for later

The reader should know that Gessica's story is a lie. In chapter two, she tells Merona to start the rumor, after all. Gessica isn't sure whether Bryony is lying or telling the truth about her lack of memory, but she sees an opportunity to plant the seed of doubt, which will later be supported by those very rumors that she started. It gives her a measure of control over Bryony, because bringing her low serves her ends.

As it turns out, Gessica has ample other reason to dislike Bryony, but that won't be revealed until much later. The foreshadowing is in place, and hopefully not too heavy. If you have a guess, email me, and I'll be mysterious and refuse to confirm or deny it for you.

I'm struck by just how evil Gessica was in this scene. She's a master manipulator, and she's using that ability to crush the spirit of a thirteen year old girl. I mean, come on! You've got to hate her at this point! In fact, that has been my first task with her, to make the reader dislike her as much as Bryony. Later on, I plan to develop Gessica further and show that she does have good qualities, but since the reader is meant to identify with Bryony, we won't see those good qualities until Bryony does herself.

Once again, I've got a short chapter featuring an intense emotional scene. The next chapter is likely to be longer, two or even three days of writing depending on where I cut it off. I'm trying to space out the intense emotional moments with lighter, friendlier ones so that the story isn't all of one texture. So if you're reading along at home, you should find something to smile about in Chapter 7.

Speaking of which, chapter 7 begins tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Today's Total: 1,788 / 1,689 words (105.9%)
Progress to Date: 21,721 / 18,575 words (116.9%, 1.9 days ahead)
Total Progress: 21,721 / 52,347 words (41.5%)