10/4/04: Re-outlining with an end in sight

Word count: 102635 | Since last entry: 174 | This month: 174 Spent the evening re-outlining the last 3 chapters, since my current outline for those chapters has gotten a little out of sync with what I’ve written and what I’ve got planned. It’s hard to really internalize the idea that, after so many months of looking so far down the road to the end, it’s now practically here. Suddenly there are so many loose ends to wrap up. And how the heck am I going to bring some of the necessary information on stage, given that the only people who know it wouldn’t tell the viewpoint characters about it under any circumstances? I’m going to have to settle for letting my viewpoint characters make some clever deductions. In some cases they have almost all the information they need to do it; I do have one wild card I can play to bring a little more info on stage. Now I know why the villain always brags about his fiendish plan while he has the hero tied up. It’s the only way for the author to get that information onto the page/screen when only the villain knows it! I hope to avoid that cliche, though. I will still have to figure out how Jason learns a key skill, how he can put that skill to use in just about no time, and how he determines that he has to be in the right place for his climax. (I think I have earned a little bit of implausibility.) But that’s not for a couple of chapters, and my ideas on those questions are firmer than they were a few weeks ago. A solution will present itself in time, I’m sure.

Comments are closed.