So Mr. Arohen and I had our delayed writing call this past Wednesday, and here it is Saturday. So let's talk about it.
Well, we started off once again talking about the writing process, specifically scenes versus chapters. We discussed how this related to Ronn's writings, and then went into a bit more about the choices Ronn is making in his story. Then we moved on to my book and went through some choices I had to make there. Finally, we determined what we needed to complete before the next call, and signed off.
I find Ronn's story idea intriguing. It has a lot of potential on many levels: character development, character interaction, discussions of life, love, commitment. betrayel, loss, and religion. There's a lot there at these upper, thematic levels. But there's also a lot of opportunity and challenge at the basic craft level -- the characters and situations have to be believable as well as intense.
I find his story intriguing. So much so that we talked about it for almost an hour, and when we switched gears to my book, it felt like we threw it into second gear while traveling 80 MPH. There was a loud grinding, but then she settled down.
I think we'll talk about my book first next time.
Ronn brought up some interesting thoughts about scenes. I don't know that I ever looked at it at the mechanical level of scene vs. chapter. I think I write in scenes, but I'm never analyzing it while I'm doing it -- I just write it. It was interesting to think about it that way and look at every scene as a setting for change that advances the story.
Today I was writing out note cards for the first third of my book. For a 90,000 word manuscript, that's 30,000 words, or (at 250 words per page), about 120 pages. Which is really about 2/3 of the novel I thought I was going to write. I mean, most of the pulp novels of the 70's were about 175 pages long, and this was supposed to be one of those. But instead ...
This is going to be one long book.
Which I truly figured out when I note carded out my chapters for the first third and ended up with six cards. Six. That's literally ONE HALF of the cards I should have, at one card per chapter. 90K words at 250 words per page, 10 pages per chapter is 36 chapters. That's 12 chapters per third, or 12 note cards.
I will have to be more specific in my scene/chapters, and expand on the things I was going to cover in each chapter, if I'm going to meet the goal.
This is going to be a bit tough for this first part, but it's going to be tougher for the second third, and I don't know how I'm going to pull 30,000 words out of my arse for the last third. I didn't plan on that much happening there.
Dang. My mind will have to work overtime for this.
