... the hump has been cleared

Chapter 22, the big climax of the entire story, called No Name by the Tongue of Man, is finished (1st draft). I almost had it done in two days, but near the end of the second day I decided I need to step back, think about for it a bit, do a revision of everything I had written, and to have this chapter go a little long but wrap up the main action and not drag the end of the climax into the start of 23, only to have the rest of 23 be wind-down. At first I was not feeling very good about how things were turning out, but after the revision and finishing the chapter, I am feeling quite satisfied.

In fact the whole thing came together much more tightly than I had thought, making this hardly an over-long chapter at just under 23K words, which actually makes it shorter than 21. There were many things I could have easily drawn out, but in the interests of keeping things moving, the writing is fast-paced and focused.

There's still a great deal of things to wrap up in 23, not the least of which is Sheam's plotline, which was totally absent from 22. It wasn't just a matter of the tone being completely different. Every event in 22, from Nightfall to Ghost to Lytha to Jyre to James, was connected, but Sheam's plotline by its very nature is not connected to the others - she's the one facing what's going on at the home turf while everyone else is out on their adventures.

I think fans of the original will be happy between the balance I struck between honoring what they remember while also keeping them in suspense. There's shades and echos and mirror images of nearly everything that went on in the old story, but everything plays out a little differently, in a different order, and with some wildly different results.

... gestate

Normally when I finish a chapter, no matter how rough it is or now self conscious I feel about it, I send it right off to my critics and await their feedback. This time, on the other hand, I hesitate. I am extra self conscious over this one because, even though the final action of the story is spread over this chapter and the next as well, most of the biggest events of the entire story happen in 22. It has both some of the weirdest stuff and some of the thiefiest stuff in the entire book.

As mentioned in the previous post, I think one of the cooler things is that finally the events described by each principal are directly linked to one another, and what happens to each character and what each character does has a big impact on what is going on with the others (well, with one exception...).

So the plan now is to go over 22 word by word and do a revision, though since I technically am not finished with the 1st draft yet I am not counting it as a revision, merely a continuation of the writing process. Who is keeping track, anyway? In other bad news, the outline for chapter 23 is in pretty rough shape, and my family is expecting out of town company again next week, so I won't have much time to write. Taff!

... this is what they call a climax

Were human hands designed to type 10,000 words in one night? Mine don't seem to happy about it.

Everything seems quite on track. I have about half of what I had planned for 22 written, and am right at the 10K word mark, which is telling me that I'll be able to wrap this story up without going on and on and on like I feared.

22 is being written old-style again, where everything is done in order and I finish a section before going on to the next one. I need to for this one, because much of what happens in one section is built off what happened in the previous one, and helps me decide some things about the next one after it. The widely divergent activities of the six principals over the previous book are beginning to impact one another.

In other news, I moved one section from chapter 20 into chapter 21, because chronologically it happens a few hours into 21. When I first wrote it I felt like it needed to be on "paper" before wrapping up 20, but now that it's been moved it does feel right as part of 21. It more neatly contains Ghost and Lytha's adventure at Soulforge inside Chapter 21 (which is continued in 22) and also lets 20 end with a little more bang.