I have been making good if not spectacular progress over the past week. Word count on the first draft is now 34,000 and, given my unease about the lack of action last week, there have been some dramatic scenes.
Last week the proportions stood at:
The Last Free City
Action/Drama: 17% Intrigue: 35% Reflection: 26% Romance: 22%
This week the balance of the story is:
The Last Free City
Action/Drama: 25% Intrigue: 31% Reflection: 22% Romance: 22%
Scenes drafted this week have included a brawl, a rampaging bindlespith (what's a bindlespith? You'll probably have to wait a couple of years to find out...), a tearful renunciation, another brawl, a visit to the Ostentatory (a kind of showroom for slaves). Plenty of incident this week, then: with 30,000 words gone, it's time to pick up towards the first climax, the point at which the protagonist's precarious grasp on events slips.
The story is still going broadly where I imagined it, although two of main characters have had little to do so far. One, whose motivations are key to the first climax, has been on stage very little. This always happens in my first drafts - characters I'd expected to be at the heart of events are becalmed, and others, conceived as placeholders, take on a life of their own. That's part of the fun of writing the story.
So far, so good.
4 comments:
Hi, "jogging buddy"
Yep, we seem to be writing at the same pace (I wrote the 40,000th word last night).
I haven't done the proper proportions of drama vs intrigue vs reflection vs romance in the The Black Hours yet, but I’d probably sum it up in:
Drama 40% Intrigue 40% Reflection 10% Sexual Tension 10% (and climbing).
I haven’t written this steadily and productively since I was 18 years old, and it’s a great feeling reflecting on the week’s work and how far the story’s progressed, isn’t it?
In fact it’s almost something worth celebrating every Friday. (Yes, I’m off to the pub now… No more writing for me today!)
Cheers
MFW
I find that my work tends to alternate between periods of total indolence and the sort of frantic activity I'm engaging in now. For me a first draft needs to be written 'hot'. When that's out of the way I can relax for a bit.
Sadly I won't be finished by the time Euro2008 starts, so something will have to give then...
As it happens, I'm in the same general neighborhood--36,000 words--but I've been stalled there for nigh unto two weeks.
These things happen sometimes, I guess, but I never learn to enjoy the draggy period before I get traction again.
Being becalmed is one of the most frustrating feelings. I had one day last week when I achieved virtually nothing because I couldn't work out which scene came next. The solution has given me a nice little plot loop, but until it comes it's murder: you can see the map, but can't work out the next step.
So it goes...
Post a Comment