by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I move through the second act of this third draft of my first novel, I continue to move scenes around at a comical, alarming rate. And what makes this behavior even worse is there’s a chance all of it will be quite moot. I have, in general, used what Stieg Larsson did with his chapters as a guide.
This woman has the general phenotype of my heroine.
And, yet, it seems as though modern novels may have shorter chapters than he had. So, it’s possible that for all my futzing with chapters and the sequence of POVs within them…lulz?
I suppose I can console myself by with the thought that even if the first thing happens with the novel should I somehow, magically, sell this novel is everything changes with the scenes and chapters, at least I will have presented the best possible vision for this novel before I came to that point.
That, at least, is what I’m saying to myself to make myself feel better.
My heroine has a sleeve tattoo similar to the one that Megan Fox now sports, even though I thought of the idea first.
But I can’t help myself. I have some very, very strict, arbitrary rules about what “looks right” in the outline I have, even though I’m the only fucking person who will notice such shit — especially if I tell a great story. People will be so wrapped up with reading the story that they won’t give a shit about the exact sequence of POVs within a chapter.
It will be interesting to see how things work out. If nothing else, I’ve come up with a novel I can be proud of, no matter what the ultimate endgame of this particular journey might be.
