by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I can’t figure out if I’m a perfectionist to a self-defeating degree when it comes to this novel or if I’m a very flawed, very tragic genius. Regardless, I’m trying to keep the first “part” of this novel down to 20 scenes, which will leave me 30 scenes for the second half of the first act.
I feel as thought being a strict when it comes to structure scene-wise will help me keep some discipline and make for a better story in the end. This slows the process down a great deal, however because I do all this writing then realize my scene count is all out of whack.
But I’ve successfully cut my first part down to 20 scenes again, leaving me a solid 30 scenes to use before I hit the second act. I really want election day to be a major event in the first act to kind of give the more clued-in people a reminder of what this story is really about.
This story is about MAGA on the right and identity politics on the left.
At least, that’s one of the about half a dozen layers to this story.
It’s subtext, if you will.
Anyway, I’m very obsessed at this point.