Day Twenty-seven - 51,455 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.

For some reason, I had a tough time getting motivated to start this morning. It wasn't getting up that stood in my way--I was up at my normal time--but rather, the simple act of opening up the blog windows to start writing.

Perhaps it's because I knew that once I did, I'd have to start writing, and then I would realize that I wasn't quite sure where to go next.

So now the windows are open, and I'm staring at the nearly blank screen with the words Chapter Thirteen written above it, and I realize that my prediction was true. I certainly know what's going to come after Chapter Thirteen, but as for the chapter itself, I'm stumped. And it's not like I can just skip it, either, because there is some important stuff in there that I want to get across.

Yes. It's thirteen. It's unlucky. Hah. I appreciate the irony.

Maybe I have options, though. What if I blended the information I needed to get across in this scene into the next section... yes, I think that would be best.

See, here's the trick. I have certain story beats that I need to hit. When I say a "beat," I just mean a point of information that I want to get across. It might be a character moment, a plot point, a description of something, foreshadowing, or just a little handle that I might want to use later on.

But beats don't make a scene. A scene needs to be its own little short story, with a beginning, middle, and end, with a climax, and a hook into the next scene. And if I'm being sufficiently clever, you may not even notice when I work beats into the story. You'll think the point of the scene is one thing, when actually it accomplishes something entirely different in the overall narrative.

So my current quandry is that I've got some story beats to get across, but no scene to put them in. One of them I had always planned chronologically to follow immediately after Bryony's interview with Tynofast, but it's not necessary. The others I think I can move around to other points as well.

Okay, that's decided then. I will launch immediately forward into the future and handle anything I need to chronologically by flashback. Here we go.

More than three hundred words in, and I've already hit a couple of the story beats that I wanted to for this section. Bryony is cherry picking her information to convince herself that she's from Outside, but Yancy is a pragmatist, and is going to remind her of every single thing she's leaving out.

Their conversation allowed me to kind of recap all of the clues that I've given so far and to organize them into sides. There is evidence that Bryony was one of the highborn, and there is evidence that she's from Outside. Just try and figure out the truth. Go on, I dare you. (Nope, she's not a time traveler, but good guess.)

The scene that takes place the following morning is one that I've enjoyed watching develop. None of it was really intentional, except for the idea that Sili paints. I like these character moments between the girls that take place when everything is happy and good.

Of course, I then proceeded to ruin that. I hadn't expected Sili and Zeoly to find out about Bryony that way, but when she got out her giant moneybag, not realizing it was a small fortune, questions would naturally be raised.

Zeoly's backstory makes her reaction make more sense. If you really want to know that badly, I've mentioned it in some earlier posts, but it's not essential, just a bit of characterization.

This chapter will go on tomorrow, and the subsequent events of the day will continue at least into the following chapter. I'm afraid it's going to be a long day for Bryony. But then, aren't they all?

Chapter 13 continues tomorrow!

Today's Total: 1,701 / 1,689 words (100.7%)
Progress to Date: 51,455 / 45,593 words (112.9%, 3.5 days ahead)
Total Progress: 51,455 / 52,347 words (98.3%)
Est. Completion: 51,455 / 250,000 words (20.6%, 118 days to go)