by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I have printed out a few chapters of the first act and now I hope to go through and make sure that the mystery-thriller elements of the story are evenly spread across as much as possible.
The basic scenes are fine, but I need to keep reminding readers that this is all leading up to a mystery-thriller Big Event that will make the novel a traditional thriller in the guise of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
The structure of this novel is much more like The Girl Who Played With Fire, however. I have about 50 scenes of lead up to the event that kicks off the second act of “the special world” and gets us going into what the novel is really about — murder in a small town.
The biggest problem I have at the moment is I’ve changed so much of the first act that I have to accommodate those changes in the rest of the novel. That is really slowing me down.
But I need to stay focused. I know I have a really great concept, I just have to build it out in a way that the novel fits the genre of mystery-thriller. It doesn’t help, of course, that I’m just not very dark or twisted in my writing. I find it really difficult to write that way.
Ugh.
Wish me luck.
