Other Than Scriptwriting

Technically, Four More Chapters

Technically, Four More Chapters

What has been happening to me? That is what I want to know. I don’t know how I did it. But I thought I had until the twenty-third to finish this third Outline for the October Prep Challenge. That was a Freebee Day. This third Outline isn’t due until the twenty-seventh. That’s eleven days from today. And I will probably need all of them to get in finish within those eleven days.

It's a good thing that I have those extra four days from my original thoughts because it looks like I will need them. After all, I started my third Outline all over again earlier today at work. As my blog title above indicates, technically, I almost got four more chapters worth of single paragraphs written earlier today. Only something was wrong. I felt it as I was writing them. That something was them being generic. I was telling this novel instead of showing it.

Unfortunately, I was about halfway through my work shift earlier before I started writing it again. Once I realized I was telling instead of showing, I started doing it from scratch. The first thing I needed to do was erase what I had already done. Except for the single sentence for each part of the first nine chapters and the Introduction. After I erased what I needed to erase, I re-wrote the single sentences.

After I finished writing the single sentences, I started writing this Outline again. Unfortunately, I only had a couple of hours to work on it. As a result, I only got the Introduction chapter written. The other two chapters I got finished after I got some sleep today. Why did it take so long to write one chapter? It was because I was trying to show instead of telling. And that’s not easy for me to do.

Showing instead of showing wasn’t the only reason why I started over. I also did it because of my secondary characters: Roobic and Maveen. Their stories are connected to Collina. But they are also disconnected. Especially, when it comes to their chapters. Chapters seven and nine were more like the chapters they were supposed to be. But chapters two and four weren’t.

I had to adjust all four of these chapters somewhat. But it was mostly the second and fourth chapters. Also made some changes to my second Outline that I will need to update for this challenge when I get finished with this third one. That is what is the priority right now. And I think that I can finish it now that I know I have a few extra days to do it. It means getting three or four chapters done per day.

It won’t be easy for me to do it. But I think that I can do that. True, I still have one Short Story to write for this challenge before the due date of this Outline. I don’t think that will be too much of a problem, though. Especially, now that I have a few extra days to finish both. The real test will be the next three days aka my days off from work.