I’ve been working on my first draft of House in Exile on and off for a while now. More off than on this past month, to be truthful. But leaving that aside, I’ve also been a bit haphazard which parts I’m working on.
When I wrote House Valerius, I did it (as far as I recall anyway) in a completely linear fashion; chapter one through to chapter twenty-eight in a steady (if dragged out) progression. When I came to write A House Divided, I did a bit of hopping around within the novel but, for the most part, I stayed fairly chronological again.
For House in Exile, what I’ve written has been a lot more piecemeal, enough that I’m not even sure I have more than a single complete chapter.However, I do have a number of scenes written. They range anywhere from the current opening; to one that I originally intended to start the book and now takes place about 1/3 to 1/2 way in, to the final few paragraphs.
What I’m lacking, or so it seems, is the bits to link those scenes together. Granted, those are the bits that could, technically, be considered the least important; at least as the overall plot is concerned. But if I don’t have them, I’m left where I am just now; with a bunch of disconnected set pieces. And it won’t matter how well written those set pieces are (which is always open to debate), to me that doesn’t add up to a satisfactory book.
So what I’m probably going to work on as much as possible next month is connecting those pieces up, and writing some bridging sequences. And here’s hoping I can make them interesting and not fall into some of the same issues I think I ran into with A House Divided. I still have to do an edit pass on that book to try resolving some of those but maybe, with this one, I can steer my way around those in the first place.
The Scribblings 