No Really – I’m just the Conduit

I wrote some more in the fifth novel this morning. Several short snippets of scenes ranging across the time line of the manuscript, now exist.  I put # tags on either end of these snippets, and hit the return button a few times. This works for me because I can see generally where in the progress of the novel they will fall, but keeps them self contained. I can add to the scene within the # and when two scenes finally mesh up, join each other in the time line, I simply remove the #.

However to assume that this means I know the plot in it’s entirety would be a mistake. I know the general flow. I know–at this stage in the manuscript–the main plot points. I know the over all how and why but the vast majority of the details simply are not there. Tat’s what the snippets contained in the # are—the small moments of detail shown to me by my Muse.

These scenes, these little details, begin to give me a wider view, as more moments happen, I can beginning to understand how the story must travel to get from A to B. Eventually I can see it all, but still the words, dialogue, conflicts, they can be sheathed in secrecy until I actually write them.

I trust it to all work out in the end because this is just how I write. Now, if I keep getting unwieldy manuscripts that are, in the end, too incoherent and leave my editors with headaches and stacks of empty red pens, I may have to reign this in, but until that happens I trust and write and enjoy.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: current work in progress, Jonathan Alvey, muse, novel, paranormal, paranormal private investigator, plot, Urban Fantasy, White Dragon Black Series, world building, writing