When the straight line bends.

First, in case anyone hasn’t yet entered, the If I Die ARC giveaway form can be found here. There are well over 600 entries now, and I’m pleased to report that more and more people are reporting having discovered my work in an actual book store. For the record, I don’t mind my books being found/bought online. Any legitimate sale is a good sale, and I appreciate every one of them. I was just a little disheartened at the apparent lack of visibility in actual brick-and-mortar stores. But that appears to be a matter of perspective, so, yay!

Second, in case you haven’t heard, I have short stories appearing in two anthologies this year. The first is “Hunt,” in the Chicks Kick Butt anthology. “Hunt” is a Shifters world story featuring Abby, Faythe’s cousin, a couple of years after Alpha. Chicks Kick Butt will be available in the US on June 7, so if you haven’t preordered your copy, this is an awesome time to do that!

Second is “Niederwald,” in the Enthralled anthology. “Niederwald” is a Soul Screamers story featuring Sabine and Emma, which takes place between My Soul To Steal and If I Die, and the anthology actually comes out the very same day as If I Die (September 20, 2011). I have several advanced copies of Enthralled, which I’ll be giving away soon.

Now for the meat and potatos…

Typically, I’m a very linear thinker/plotter/writer. This means I tend to think things through in a straight line. I take point A to point B, then head right for point C, etc… until I get to the end. But that hasn’t been the case with Shadow Bound, maybe because of the 1 hr/1000 word writing sessions I’ve been doing.

In order to actually write 1000+ fresh words in an hour, repeatedly and consistently, I have to know what needs to be written before I sit down in front of the screen. And even with my obsessively detailed synopsis, that isn’t always possible, because things change. At some point during the writing of the rough draft, it becomes obvious that point D doesn’t actually lead to point E with anything resembling a logical progression. So point E must be scrapped in favor of some other point, and right now, these new points look/feel more like some abstract math problem (point 3x/$) rather than any simple letter (point E).

But my point is that in order to keep the words flowing, I’ve gotten very self-indulgent with my rough draft. I write whichever plotted-but-yet-unwritten scene feels most exciting to me at the moment. And so far, that’s worked. It’s kept me from getting bored with the manuscript, and it’s even led me to a few surprises. So what’s the problem?

This book isn’t told from one point of view.

If this were a Shifters book or a Soul Screamers book, I could write the scenes in any order I wanted and piece them together later, because all the scenes would be narrated by Faythe (Shifters) or Kaylee (Soul Screamers). But the Unbound books are told from two different 1st person points of view. Which means that if I skip around now and write a scene from Kori’s POV, when I start piecing the scenes together in logical order, it may turn out to be Ian’s turn to talk when that scene comes up.

This is a problem.

Ideally, as I’ve learned writing the Unbound series, any scene should be told from the POV of the character who has the most to lose/learn/feel within it. The character the events impact the most. But also ideally (and sometimes contradictorily) the scenes should alternate somewhat regularly, so I don’t wind up with four scenes in a row from Kori’s POV, and the occasional sprinkling of Ian’s. (Note: this is for a 2 POV book. This changes significantly with 3rd person and/or multiple 1st person POVs.)

So, plotting and writing this book has become a very painstaking process in which I have to balance the narrative between two different perspectives while also volleying evenly between those perspectives. Without losing any of the excitement of the story. This process has given me a great respect for writers who regularly write from multiple perspectives. Especially those who write from multiple 1st person perspectives. Especially especially those who write from multiple 1st person perspectives including one man’s and one woman’s POV.

I’m looking forward to switching back to the Soul Screamers universe after this, because it’s simpler. Because there comes a point in every book at which the writer hates the book being written, and I’m nearly there with Shadow Bound, which makes the next Soul Screamers book (which will probably frustrate me to no end when I’m actually writing it) look like a greener lawn, just beyond the proverbial fence.

Also, today’s a crazy day for me, full of personal obligations that may not leave me time to make my word count goal today. But I’m going to try. I need to get to 84,000 words today. Here’s where it stands now:

 

81,040 / 100,000
(81.04%)