Alex.J.Cobalt

I’ve got pages and page and pages of notes trying to work out the sequence in the middle of the story. It’s the bridging piece between the beginning setup and the key middle sequence and by gods does nothing I write work.

(This is also a lesson in not trying to have too many POVs, I have not helped myself here).

I think there is something in the editing process, which I’m now coming up to 3 years for Assassins 1, where you have to take a step back and look at the story as a whole. See what you’ve got for your beginning, middle and end and work out what is the kind of story that I want to tell?

It’s been a bit of an interesting exercise with Assassins 1. I’ve debating changing the main MC and changing to more or less POVs. I’ve re-written the allegiances of the assassins Guilds to build up the antagonist a bit more, and change the location of a key scene to three (or four?) different kingdoms until I found the right home for it. There are hundreds of words that have been put onto the editing pile, and I still feel nowhere near the end.

Having taken a step back from the story, I can now see what the benefits of those edits have been. I can see where I want to take the story (even if I’ve not yet decided on which of the three endings I want to use), and most important, what story I want to tell with these characters. I’ve had to really dig deep into the character’s motivations (which means more editing of the first section, I cry) and identified some of their core drivers that will carry through the story. I’ve decided on which antagonist I’m going to keep, which one is going to be used for a wider arc and which one is…not really a true antagonist at all.

My focus for next month is going to be to get words on the page. Get this transition section down so I can finally make tracks into the second half of the novel. We’ll see how it goes!

Photo Credit: Photo by J. Balla Photography on Unsplash

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