I’m in too deep. Send help!

[msstice]

I’m on draft 3. Apparently that’s the dangerous draft, because I’m getting ideas for major restructuring of the work. The smaller things, like breaking a chapter in two and moving another chapter in between are easy to do and test. The bigger things, like “make this happen before”, “tweak the plot to make motivations more plausible”, are overwhelming me because they involve major revision, perhaps rewrites of several chapters. To try things out, I’m making one sentence summaries of chapters to see how well the thing goes together. It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s the creative process. I got this. I just have to take a breath …

 

[Biskit]

You know what they say, when you're in a hole, shout for some pit-props and start digging sideways.

In the meanwhile, put the kettle on, tell the cat to drop the lead because it can take itself for a walk, and then get back in there.

Good luck.

 

[msstice]

What I like about fiction is that there are infinite possibilities even in the smallest unit of your work. My world has an unpleasant corrupt leader. Should I make everyone terrified of the leader? Should some people poke fun at the leader? Should the leader kill the people poking fun at her? These decisions keep the plot stable but change the tone drastically. They may even sway the plot, depending on what this reveals about the people.

It's overwhelming, but infinite fun.

 

[Yozh]

Maybe have a few trusted people read the beginning chapters and get their feedback on what they think of the characters and storyline so far, and that may give you an idea of what direction will work best. E.g. if reader say something like "can't wait to see that *** of a leader get their comeuppance!" or if they tend to like to grimmer or lighter parts of the story.

 

[sknox]

Yes, yes, this and all of this. Fiction is brutal because of the infinite range of what *could* work. With the goal of making the end product seem like that was the only choice possible.

Yeesh.

I, too, wind up making structural summaries. They help a bit, though sometimes it just adds more voices to the cacophany of possibilities. This the phase where you have to trust to your instincts, force yourself to make some choice rather than no choice, and accept it that every 100k novel is 150k+ -- it's just that the reader never sees the other fifty thousand you wrote.

I'm sure there's a better way of doing this!