500 words a day. That’s my goal. In theory, if I spend half of a given year writing and the other half editing, I’d manage about one novel a year at that rate. I’d prefer to get quite a bit more than that accomplished, but with the usual pressing concerns it seems unlikely.
At current, I’m wrangling with a chapter that I plan stick directly in the middle of a novel that I’ve been outlining and re-outlining for years. Perhaps it’s rust, perhaps it’s bad place to start, perhaps the plot just isn’t very good, but I’ve had a hell of a time making anything positive out of this chapter. It’s become a tangled knot and I’ve spent the better part of a week trying to find a way to untangle it into something worth reading.
The outline is quite simple. My protagonist is a new arrival in a town where he’s taken up residence with some old friends. In one particular month there’s a crime a city away. The plot, in barest abstract, is my protagonists reaction and his appraisal of the town’s reaction to the murder. The difficulty is in finding where the plot actually lies.
The murder itself is meant to be entertaining to read – something rather humorous in this case, however the murder isn’t actually a plot point. It is an event taking place off camera, a driving force behind the emotion behind a scene, and a piece of moving scenery. My frustration is in describing the murder and associated background enough to develop a scene without going too far and making the scene a journal entry of a murder that none of my characters are actually familiar. The alternative is to concentrate on a half dozen characters who aren’t really doing anything – just reacting to this event out of view. The balance is to find how much setting is enough to set the wheels in motion and how much action on the part of the character’s is enough to allow the background setting to focus the overall emotional impact of the chapter.
I’ve yet to manage 500 words today and this entry is closing in on 400. Hopefully I’ll time for a more enlightening contribution next week.
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