Day Thirty-eight - 72,274 words and counting

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.

Internet has been restored to Panera. Our long national nightmare is over.

Yesterday, I said that I still needed to work out my timeline going forward, and said that no doubt I would have plenty of time to decide on that before starting today. Yeah. How did that work out for me? About as well as you'd expect; that is, not at all.

The Long Island Writers' Guild met last night, which absorbed most of my evening. So that means that the decision about how to proceed must come now.

There are several things that I need to establish right now. First, Bryony needs to figure out what to do next in the search for her past. She now knows as much as the reader does. The question is, where does she go from here?

To me, the natural question is to try to find out whatever happened to the clothes she was wearing when she came in, and if there was anything else with her other than that. But who can she ask? Gessica and Merona aren't telling. Elma is one idea, although as it happens, she was only called a couple of days later, so she never saw Bryony in her original attire.

Huh. Looks like I've written myself in to a dead end as far as that is concerned--at least, with the tools that Bryony currently has at her disposal. Later, she might be able to pick up the trail, but not now.

So now what? The great adventure I promised is only justified by a search for those articles, but since they don't know where to look, they can't go? So I'm left with two possibilities--a secondary justification, or a delay in tht scene.

The problem is, there is no secondary justification that would ring true right now. It has to be for the sake of something that Bryony wants very much, and at the moment, there's nothing else she really wants other than to find out about her past--and even that, she's unsure of. If I threatened one of her friends, then that would work, but I can't see that Yancy, Sili, or Zeoly would really be in that much trouble, much less Elma, and those are the only people she would do it for. (Other than Devan, of course, but he's out of the running because she would need his help.)

What about a delay? Yeah, I could manage that later on without a problem. It's the now that worries me. I'm suddenly left without a climax for the end of part 1, and that's no good. I would have to install an alternative climax.

Well, what threads have I left out there that I could weave into a climax? Something about magic, perhaps? Some kind of maltreatment of Yancy? Why not both of those?

Actually, yes, this could work. I've already set up that Kalocia has a reason to hate Bryony, and she already looked down on Yancy. Revenge is not beyond her. I also established that Jorgen is her boy toy, and he probably has influence of his own. I even have a setting--the Razor would be perfect, as long as it's at a time when there's not many people around.

So, what form would the magic take? Nothing controlled, I think. A burst that knocks everyone over, I think, knocks them out. Yancy is already knocked out, so she doesn't see what happened. She can find out later.

Okay, so that's a decent climax. But that brings me back to my timeline. When is this going to happen? The events I have left are the attack, the dance, and the testing. I had originally planned for the testing to be the coda of the whole thing, but now I think it might need to come earlier.

In fact... yes, I'm liking this. Bryony turns 14, and she is immediately pulled away for testing. I need a scene before that where Merona and Gessica talk about it. In fact, that should probably be what I write today. I just need to decide if there's anything left to wrap up with Devan and Bryony first.

Following immediately on that scene is Bryony's testing from her POV, and the outcome. Let's say it's the day before the big dance, or even the day of... yes, I like it being on Cleaning Day itself. She gets called out in the morning, and doesn't get back until almost everyone else is already at the dance. Yancy was waiting for her... Devan too? Yeah, I think so. Sili and Zeoly already left.

So they head to the dance and Bryony has a grand entrance. I'll have to build up rumors about her before that point. She gets there, and in a very short time there's a scene. Now people know she was highborn, and they see her new mark. Disregard suddenly turns to reverence, and she finds herself oohed and aahed over.

Cut to her way home, and the attack happens. Cut to black, end of part 1.

--

Now, on to today. I went ahead and concluded the scene with Devan and Bryony. My original plan was to end chapter 18 here, but instead, I think I'll do a half chapter of Merona POV. She and Gessica have a lot to discuss.

For that, it seems, we shall have to wait. I don't know if we'll pick up with Merona tomorrow, but I expect that we will. Either way, Chapter 19 begins tomorrow!

Today's Total: 2,050 / 1,689 words (121.4%)
Nov. Progress to Date: 13,047 / 11,823 words (110.4%, 0.7 days ahead)
Nov. Total Progress: 13,047 / 50,670 (25.7%)
Est. Completion: 72,274 / 250,000 words (28.9%, 105 days to go)