Let's JFDI then

What's to lose

We've wasted five months pontificating about structure and character anyway, what is there to lose by just trying to sit down during November and write a draft?  So let's rough out the acts and chapters.  First, the chronology as I have it already:

The backstory:

• Twenty years ago, Friedrich Recker is rescued from the sea and brought to Glasgow
• As he gains strength, he gains popularity and influence
• Billy Fraser and his wife Nancy fall under his influence
• Recker embarks on a reign of terror in the community
• Nancy has an affair with Recker and falls pregnant
• She kills Billy in a struggle and lets Jake think it was him
• The community fear for her sanity and lock her in the shed
• Young William distraught at his father's death, sets fire to it, not knowing it's his mother
• She survives in secret and goes into hiding
• Nancy poisons Recker, and locks him in the church
• Nancy has her child, a daughter, but gives her up for adoption
• Nancy feeds Fiend over the next twenty years

The modern story:

• Jake discovers an old man is living in a church
• By accident (fire?) the old man escapes and Jake takes him in
• Living with Jake and Elaine, he gets stronger by the day
• The man gets involved with the gang activity
• The world descends into chaos as Fiend takes charge
• Jake hits a breaking point but cannot challenge Fiend
• William, Jake's brother, gets killed
• Nancy, their mother, reappears on the scene hating Fiend
• Jake learns to let go of his mental block in order to defeat Fiend
• Fiend is defeated

The Acts of the Story

Act 1 - The way it's been, the discovery of the old man, his release
Act 2 - The rise of Fiend, success and excitement, changes afoot
Act 3 - Begins to go sour, starts to back out, ends with William's death
Act 4 - Jake regroups, finds himself, realizes his power, defeats Fiend


Chapters

Act 1
Chapter 01 - Discovery of Fiend, turning point
Chapter 02 - The way things have been with Michael
Chapter 03 - The fire, friendship and a need to change
Chapter 04 - Fred comes to stay, the way things have been with Elaine

Act 2
Chapter 05 - Fred recovers, romance dwindles
Chapter 06 - The first outing, William's approval
Chapter 07 - New image, new beginnings
Chapter 08 - The first victory, enemies vanquished
Chapter 09 - Cock of the roost, the first murders
Chapter 10 - Jake has a pop
Chapter 11 - New houses all round
Chapter 12 - A blast from the past
Chapter 13 - Jake takes a back seat

Act 3
Chapter 14 - More murders, more problems
Chapter 15 - Jake hands in his cards
Chapter 16 - A night out from hell, the break-up
Chapter 17 - William makes an admission
Chapter 18 - The Big Heist, William dies

Act 4
Chapter 19 - A face from the past at the funeral
Chapter 20 - The failed challenge
Chapter 21 - Finding out the truth, Elaine goes mad
Chapter 22 - The key to the prize
Chapter 23 - Making sure everything is settled
Chapter 24 - The showdown

Act 5
Chapter 25 - The aftermath


So now what?

So what does this mean for word length?  If I have 25 chapters that's around 3,500 per chapter on average.  I think I could possibly get a draft pf this length done per day, which makes a 80,000 word first draft eminently possible during the month of November, if I give myself one day off a week.

Many of these chapter headings are little more than ideas at the moment, but I quite like the idea of leaving it vague before I start because it allows me to be a little bit more inventive when the draft is being written.

The idea is to write almost a fully encapsulated story within each chapter.  Each chapter will have a reason, it will move the characters through their timelines, hopefully exploring all the possible conflicts and questions and each of the four timelines will have a good conclusion.

Go!

Getting Ready for a Burst of Speed

Some time has passed

I've gotten into a fugue about this story.  I still like it, and still want to write it, but emotionally I was a bit fatigued by the whole thing.  The dead-end of the Dramatica route, and the energy expended in creating something from the ashes has drained my enthusiasm.  There has been a gap in time.

But now I'm back, and part of the reason is that I want to get on to the actual writing of the first draft.  I'm tired of this endless planning and reworking, I feel as if it's an excuse to not be knocking out the word counts, which is the bread-and-butter of writing, after all.  I'm going to use the traditional month of November to try to knock out a first draft of the book.  But this means I have to bite the bullet and finish off the preparatory work, which has literally taken months.  I have four days to get this done.


What is left

So we have worked out the rough chronology of the main story and the historical backstory.  We have bounced the themes up and down the four story threads.  I think we have pretty much covered all of the plot intricacies.

What is left is to revisit the characters that we beefed out whilst going through Dramatica, and then to do what it calls the Story Weave, which is the construction of the plot points and the journeys between them - creating the actual story narrative plan.


Or...

Or else I could just say... my subconscious knows what needs to happen, just write the thing.
Plan out four dozen chapter headings and JFDI.

Tempting,

Working in the Past

A Hard Day's Night

So, after a painful few sessions trying to work out that elusive backstory, let's get it all down on paper and look at what it is.

The chronology:

• Twenty years ago, Friedrich Recker is rescued from the sea and brought to Glasgow
• As he gains strength, he gains popularity and influence
• Billy Fraser and his wife Nancy fall under his influence
• Recker embarks on a reign of terror in the community
• Nancy has an affair with Recker and falls pregnant
• She kills Billy in a struggle and lets Jake think it was him
• The community fear for her sanity and lock her in the shed
• Young William distraught at his father's death, sets fire to it, not knowing it's his mother
• She survives in secret and goes into hiding
• Nancy poisons Recker, and locks him in the church
• Nancy has her child, a daughter, but gives her up for adoption
• Nancy feeds Fiend over the next twenty years

Then cut to the opening of the present day story.  Jake is still suffering from the memory of his father's death, still believing he is responsible.  His brother William thinks he killed his own mother by accident.  Nancy is actually still alive and still keeping Fiend alive but in a semi-comatose state due to lack of light.  Her daughter, who she gave up, is now Elaine and is living with Jake, unaware they are half-siblings. 

Obviously the idea that Nancy being alive and of Elaine being his half-sister changes the modern day story, it has to. We can get to that. 


A Prequel

Although we will not be telling this story directly, we should treat it as if it was a prequel novel to the current story.  This means we should treat it as if it was a novel in its own right.  We have to take this rough outline for the past story and apply the same ideas of Theme on the four levels.

First of all, we need to choose a main character for the old timeline, and I think this has to be Nancy, she's the one who drives all the main action.

Now the main theme of the old story is one of things going off the rails leading to disaster.  Nancy seems to be happy in the beginning, two kids, husband. But when Fiend comes along, she loses her head and things rapidly go south.  That's the Personal Thread.  If we take this as the theme of the novel, we need to bounce this up through the other remaining three threads to make sure it resonates.

So for the Interpersonal thread, I think this needs to be with Recker.  It starts off with friendship, but moves into something more immersive and destructive.  In order to resonate the theme, this relationship must deteriorate - the more she wants him, the less he wants her, culminating in the death of Billy and her trapping him in the church in order to keep him.

The Ensemble thread is all about the collective of Nancy, Billy, Recker and presumably a cohort of unknown friends, including the ones who brought Recker back from sea, and the ones who locked her in the shed.  As Nancy gets caught up, the dynamics of the group change, to the point of complete breakdown - as they imprison Nancy for murdering Billy.

The Historical thread is what happened in the community during that time.  In an echo of the current day story, Fiend unleashes chaos and terror, until it is abruptly cut short by a murder.

So the bounce of the theme up through the threads has worked again, and the story seems to work on multiple levels.


Impact on the modern story

It's been a while but how does this impact on the chronology of the modern story?  Let's look at it again.

• Jake discovers an old man is living in a church
• By accident (fire?) the old man escapes and Jake takes him in
• Living with Jake and Elaine, he gets stronger by the day
• The man gets involved with the gang activity
• The world descends into chaos as Fiend takes charge
• Jake hits a breaking point but cannot challenge Fiend
• William, Jake's brother, gets killed
• Jake has to let go of his mental block in order to defeat Fiend
• Fiend is defeated

So this time, after William gets killed, Nancy reappears and tells Jake that he didn't kill his father, and how she trapped Fiend the last time.  Seeking redemption, she aids him in the capture and defeat of Fiend a second time.  Obviously there are sub-threads involving Elaine and all the other characters, but I think we've got a pretty good double-story going on.


Something new

It's time to move onto the next concept



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